Naming a business in 2021 is very different than it was in the past. Back in the day, you chose your business’s name based mainly on your desires, even if that meant naming it after your kids. Today, you need to think about branding and how people will find your business online.
This is because people look for all kinds of businesses online before visiting in person, even if they have an idea of what is in the area. And when looking for a non-established business, they will only click on the names that reflect what they need.
That’s not to say you can’t name your business whatever you want. However, you should take the following steps and use a domain name generator to find the perfect match domain name that suits your business.
Do keyword research
Keyword research is often associated with the content written on your web pages or articles. Including the right keywords will make your pages easier to come across. However, it is also a useful activity when choosing the name of your business.
This is because it shows you what people are talking about. Perhaps more importantly, it shows you what people are not talking about. Think about someone trying to market a cinema. If they called their cinema a bioscope, many potential moviegoers wouldn’t give it a second thought.
It’s a simple example and may seem unrealistic, but let’s look at the opposite. Five years from now, watching retro films has become mainstream and the term bioscope is in use again. Now, a bioscope with the name “cinema” in its title sounds outdated.
When naming a business in 2021, this needs to be top of mind because all of your competitors will be using the relevant terms in their names, making them the first options to be clicked on when a person completes a search.
Brainstorm (while trying out domain names)
The next step is to brainstorm how to get the relevant terms into a catchy name. However, simply brainstorming is not going to suffice. You may come up with a whole range of business names only to find out that the domain names are unavailable. Alternatively, there may be businesses with domain names that are just too similar to your choice.
I recently drove to an HR and recruitment company, thinking I was visiting a kitchenware store. Their names were almost exactly the same, and the HR company had slightly better branding.
This should never happen in 2021. It is so easy to use a domain name generator to find names that are not taken before you settle on them. Make sure to check whether an available domain name is taken with a different suffix (i.e. .io instead of .com). Check all variations of the words in your name before buying the domain and basing all your branding around it.
Settle on something you like
After this process, it’s all too easy to take the most generic name available, based on how well it will do in online searches. However, you are still naming your own company, and you want it to say something about you.
Look for a name until you find something you actually like and can get excited about. It may not be a combination of the names of your three children, but it can still mean something to you. Think about your business’s core values. Even with the most traditional businesses, it is possible for you to stand out based on how you treat your customers and how you think about your place in the economy.
Consider buying all variations
The good news is that in 2021, most people are not typing out URLs. But that doesn’t mean variations of your domain name can’t end up hurting you. There are people who use bots to buy up close variations of business names and then present them online as if they are related to your company.
They do this in order to coerce businesses into buying these domain names from them at exorbitant prices. It may be prudent to preempt this and buy the variations in advance. You can direct them all to your home page, and won’t have to worry about sketchy individuals trying to extort you. It is interesting to note that the company GoDaddy was actually caught doing something similar in the past, so this is not mere paranoia.
Of course, if your business’s online presence is not important to its functionality, this is not going to impact you too much. Still, renting a domain name for a year is not expensive if no one has gotten there before you.
The name of your business is the very basis of your online marketing strategy. You can no longer choose it based on preference in 2021. Take the above considerations into account before settling on something that may hamstring you.
