This is a contributor’s blogpost …

 

Marketing a business is a tricky thing to do. You can spend a lot of time and money on advertising campaigns and social media output, but none of that matters if the company doesn’t have a good name. People often underestimate just how difficult it is to come up with a decent name for your business so if you’re struggling, here are some things to consider.

 

Limited Company

 

Picking the name itself is one thing, but you also need to decide whether you’re going to be a limited company or not. Firstly, what is a limited company? There are two types of limited company – limited by share or limited by guarantee. Limited by guarantee is usually reserved for non-profits, so we’ll focus on limited by shares. When you limit a company by shares, it’s a separate entity responsible for its own finances, liabilities, and actions. The major benefit of this is that you aren’t personally liable for the debts of the company, which means you have a certain amount of protection if the company gets into trouble. Registering as a limited company also gives you the ability to sell shares to others.

 

It Has To Sound Good

 

This seems pretty obvious but you’d be surprised how often people forget about it. The company name has to be snappy and sound good when you say it out loud. If you come up with a long name that’s hard to pronounce or doesn’t roll off the tongue very well, it won’t be as memorable. If people can’t pronounce it properly, that can cause you some serious issues as well. Imagine a customer buys one of your products and they love it. They tell their friends about it and they ask where they can get their own. If that customer can’t remember the name exactly, when those friends try to search for you, they won’t find you. Things like alliteration sound good out loud, names that are too long don’t. Make sure you tell the name to people and see what they think before you decide on one.

 

Photo courtesy of Startup Stock Photos via Pexels

 

Website Name

 

The length and spelling of the name are also important when it comes to your website. One of the biggest website mistakes that people make is a bad domain name and that often comes from a bad company name. You want the website name to be the same as the company name, so people can easily find your site. If the name is far too long or hard to spell, people are going to be far less likely to remember that domain name and they won’t have the patience to spend ages trying different spellings before eventually landing on your website. The same goes for email addresses. It doesn’t seem like much of a big deal but it’ll put people off if they have to type in a long complicated email address to get in touch with you.

 

Once you’ve decided on a short, snappy name that sounds good and is easy to remember, you’re almost there. The one final thing you absolutely have to do is make sure that nobody else is already using it. If you don’t and you start trading, you’ll find yourself in some legal trouble.