Choosing Your Business Name and Not Being Basic

Intro

So you’re ready to start your business. I assume that because here you are, sitting in front of your phone, tablet or desktop reading this article. You are seeking out information on how to name your business and are conducting your research. Congrats on entering the beginning stages of your business/website/blog! Whatever you’re getting yourself into, this article will help you on your approach.

Maybe you already have a list of names or maybe you haven’t even put your pen to paper, yet. It’s all good! Maybe you’re thinking that you want something that is going to resonate if a specific audience, like mothers of small children or teens that are graduating and moving on to college. Whatever is behind your mission, your goal, your whatever, we’re going to get this done together.

Step 1 – Make You List

See? It’s a pretty easy step to gently guide you in on this daunting task of naming your business. Just pick up a piece of paper and a pen. For the first five lines, write down the ideas that you have been day-dreaming about. You must have started thinking about this at one point on your journey before you came across this article, but maybe you haven’t written anything down yet.

Take into consideration that every time you pitch yourself and your business, your name will be the first thing out of your mouth. You’ll want something that represents you and the work you’ll be doing.

Step 2 – Check it Twice

Go through your list of five names and check that they don’t match up with some of the worst business names in this Inc 15 Worst Business Names in History article!. Cross those ones off.

Step 3 – Research

And you thought this step was going to be about deciding which names were naughty and nice, am I right?

Research, research, research. As you keep adding ideas to your list, you’ll need to research whether those names are taken already. If you’re a mother and you love to travel, maybe you wrote down “The Mommy Adventures” as one of your titles.

Google that and see what comes up. Adventure Mom shows up in the results in the number one spot, followed by a television show.

You’ll want to ask yourself a few questions:

• Can I compete with someone already established?
• Are our names and topics too similar?
• Can my friends/family distinguish one name from the other?

Once you research your entire list, you should have a better understanding about the names you’ve chosen and if they will – or won’t – work for you. If you ended up crossing off your entire list, then it’s time to brainstorm some more!

Step 4: Don’t be Basic

Like my husband always says, I am a basic b*tch. I mean, come on, I’ve named this domain after myself and I’ve categorized my food and photography interests into subdomains. I took the least creative route in deciding to name my things.

I have tried many domains over the past ten years, but I lost interest in all of them. You’re going to run into articles that tell you to make sure your website is very niche as that will help you grow in the future, but it didn’t help me. I ended up writing myself into a corner and falling out of love with my websites – ALL of them.

Conclusion

Being basic isn’t bad. Repeat that to yourself. Being basic isn’t bad. I’m not here to tell you not to name your business after yourself. I am poking fun at myself for going the most basic route because I am being true to myself.

Whatever you decide to name your business, are you being true to yourself? Let me know in the comments below.

Cheers,
Katie