A lot of customers come to Kickofflabs with just an idea. They don’t even have a name yet. I can see them constantly changing the names on their landing pages trying to find something that works. This post contains advice and resources to help you pick the perfect name for your next product.
Is it Google-able with common variations?
For the first several months of business your #1 “organic” seo term is going to be people that heard about you searching on your name… or what they think is your name. We could see customers telling other people about us because of the new customers coming from searches for “KickoffLabs”, “Kick Labs”, “Lab Kickoff”, “Kicker Lab”, “Kick off”, etc.
Could you own the social media?
It’s not just the domain that has to be available. Ideally you could own the Facebook page & Twitter handle for that name. I would have hated to be “kickofflabsapp” on twitter. I like my domains and social handles to match. People will ignore the addition and just try to tweet at your domain handle… own it.
Tools for picking the perfect name
http://www.panabee.com – I’m a big fan because you get the basic domain search as well as several variations and suggestions. It also does twitter, facebook, and google searches for you. One stop validations. It works best if you try to combine two words and will give you a handy thesaurus lookup as well.
More help with DIY naming…
http://domai.nr/ – Get help with alternate domain spellings like fav.or
https://domize.com/ – Simple instant search on domains.
and a couple of reasonable paid services to come up with names.
Naming your business can be a scary experience for some people. Definitely, it is a very important step.
Your business name is a form of business communication: it needs to be effective. Ideally I think the perfect name for a small business clearly communicates what kind of products/services you offer, while reflecting your personality at the same time. Including a keyword isn’t a bad idea, either.
Hopefully, the name is available: be prepared to be flexible. In my experience, the business names I select are usually available at bcbusinessregistry.ca but the domain name is not, so I would recommend that you start with the domain name first.
Check out the article about naming your business at KickoffLabs’ blog (excerpt below) for some great tips.
Also, check out their site if you want to put a landing page up at your domain- it just takes a few minutes to get one up and it’s free. Here’s one I created in about 3 minutes just to check the service out: fullserve.net.
They also mention several online shops where you can buy a pre-configured domain and brand (i.e. brandbucket.com), an interesting option.