Five Essential Considerations to Make Before Naming Your Business

Naming your business can be complicated. There are a large number of things to consider, and if you haven’t named a business in the past, some of the most important considerations can be left to the wayside. When naming your business, it’s important to take everything into account. Changing your name partway through your business’s life can be devastating to your brand recognition.

For this reason, we’ve prepared a list of five essential considerations you should make before you name your business.

1. Local, Regional, and Global Considerations

For businesses aspiring to drive their brand on the international market, it is important to secure a dot-com name.

The best business names for a global marketplace should have worldwide appeal, be catchy and not be culturally offensive.

This being said, when creating and discovering your new business name you must always take into account local, regional and global considerations. So if you are going international, you must create a name that is also available as a dot-com domain name. While there is true and real value in other domain extensions such as dot-au, the ultimate domain extension is dot-com.

Your business name and the domain name must be identical. This is a key element when deciding what your new business name should be.

2. Name Length Considerations

Short, clear, snappy names work best.

The length of your new business, product or service name is a very important factor, generally speaking, 1-3 syllables and 10 -14 letters in length.

The longer the name, the harder it is to remember, the greater chance there is of spelling it incorrectly. Lets say you name your business John Barry Cleaning Services, your email address would be john@johnbarrycleaningservices.com.

The better alternative would be to give your business a dynamic name like Netclean. This name is short, brandable, stands out and is easy to remember.

Don’t use hyphens or other characters like &#()%*&?”, these will only cause mass confusion in the marketplace, and ultimately the consumer. If used correctly, numbers can be used but be sure to use these in the right context, e.g. 24/7 or 365

3. Name Pronunciation, Spelling, and Recall Value Considerations

It’s easy to identify a great name when you see it, hear it or engage with it whether it be in person, online, on TV, on a billboard or over the phone.

Great names sound smooth and make you feel comfortable. There is something about the name that just feels right. Take a look at these sample world-class names that have taken the world by storm: Google, Ford, Apple, Huggies, Ikea.

Saying your new business name ideas out loud will assist in identifying which name rolls off the tongue most smoothly and which name sounds the best when said aloud. This will give you an idea of how the business name idea would sound if you heard it over the radio, TV or on the phone.

It’s not just about the name. The reality is, any name can be effective when backed by excellent service delivery, marketing strategy and brand development.

4. Business Name and Trademark Considerations

Test your new name’s availability across all parameters.

After you have developed and created your list of business, product or service  name ideas that are memorable, expressive and bang for your buck, you now need to check the following availabilities:

• make sure that the domain name is available (either .com.au, .com or both)
• That it can be registered as a trading name with your local government authorities
• Is available across all social media platforms
• and you may also want to do a trademark search.

Not every business name needs to be trademarked, as long as you are not infringing on anyone else’s trade name. However, you may want to consider engaging a trademark professional like Bayard Lawyers to ensure your new name doesn’t infringe on another business’s trademark.

After all, you don’t want to get caught up in any legal disputes down the track once you have invested a lot of time and money into setting up your new business and/or project.

5. Social Media Readiness Considerations

So chances are your perfect name may already be taken.

It’s frustrating when someone else has registered your ideal business name, especially if you find out they’re not even using it. Most social media platforms have a policy in place for trademark infringements, but if your name or business name isn’t a registered trademark, you’re probably out of luck. Here are some creative ways to come up with an alternative social media name:

1. Add an initial, term or number. If your name’s already taken, try adding an initial or number like @1Servepoint, or @GoServepoint.
2. Add a location. This is a great idea for local businesses or businesses with multiple locations. You can add your country @AusServepoint, or your city if you can fit it!
3. Use an underscore. This tip is last because it’s not ideal. Underscores not only take up your valuable character limit, but they’re also hard to remember. If your desired username @examplename is taken, it may not be a good idea to use @example_name instead.

What do I do Once I Have my Businesses Name?

Once you’ve found a high-quality name for your business, the next step is to register an Australian Business Name. We can help, with support for the whole name registration process, NameCorp can help you get your business off the ground without any obstacles. If you need any help, please don’t be afraid to get in touch.

If you’re still unsure what you want to name your business, we’ve created a guide to effectively naming your business that you can download here:

Disclaimer: All information provided on this webpage is general information about our business in Australia, and products and services. Nothing on this webpage is intended to be professional advice and should not be relied on as such. You should obtain specific financial, legal, or other professional advice before relying on the content of this webpage. By not seeking such advice, you accept the risk that the information on this webpage may not meet the specific needs of your business. Our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law in accordance with our website terms and conditions.