So you just decided you want to be an entrepreneur. You have a great idea for a name and you know what you’re selling or the service you are providing. Most new businesses are enticed to name their business something that seems indicative of the area they serve. While this is the knee-jerk decision for many business owners is it the correct one? Probably not.
What Not To Name Your Business
emerse design co. is home-based out of Grand Junction, Colorado. It is a beautiful place surrounded by noteworthy mountains and geological structures and guess what? Practically every business here names itself one of them.
We have countless numbers of the following business names:
- Mountain – we live in the rockies
- Two Rivers – because it’s Grand Junction (confluence of two rivers)
- Dos Rios – Spanish for Two Rivers
- Mesa – it’s the county and a mountain/national forest east of town
- Monument – home of the Colorado National Monument mountains south of town
- Bookcliff – mountain range on the North end of town
- Grand Valley – because it’s a valley surrounded by these mountains
- High Desert – cuz it is one
- High Country – High elevation city 4600 ft or maybe it’s the weed…
- Western Slope – It’s the western half of the continental divide
- Colorado – because of the obvious
- Intermountain
- Rimrock – Geological feature
- Independence – Geological feature
The Ones You See Everywhere
- Quality – So are you more quality than the competition?
- AAA – the internet isn’t alphabetical
- Elite
- Better
- Best
- American – I’m as patriotic as the next guy but again the internet isn’t alphabetized
- Advanced
- United
- ABC
- The list goes on…..
Absolutely none of the above actually resonate with what a company is actually about or give originality to their names. The point we’re trying to make is that in the digital world when you are trying to search for a business name that starts with the same thing as potentially hundreds of other businesses in town, your potential leads have now become scattered. Do you know that autofill thing that you use all the time on Google? Yeah, when you start typing Two Rivers here in Grand Junction your location impacts your search, and the business or organization with the best SEO or oldest domain will be the winner. If you named your business something from the lists above you will automatically struggle to get the right traffic. People are lazy, it’s a fact. We don’t want to work that hard to find the solution we need. We’ll delete the text and simply search again using the service or product we are looking for.
Non-Industry Competition
What if your potential customer was trying to look you up and you provide Solar Panel services but instead they end up landing on the Plumber? First, they will get frustrated, then they will likely search directly for Solar Panel services and if you haven’t done your SEO and Marketing leg work you’ll lose out to the company with the deeper marketing pockets. But if you have an original name that automatically isn’t competing with everyone else and it’s easy to remember you might beat that higher advertising budget.
How To Name Your Business
Your business name matters. Its originality matters. If you have a common first or last name, don’t name your business that. Find a way to twist what you do together into something original and memorable. The very best business names are made-up words that aren’t in the dictionary and have nothing to do with your geographic location. Sure if you were the first person in town 100 years ago to have the name Grand Junction – (name your industry) and you purchased a domain name in the 90s, you might have the upper hand in name matching with geography. But I don’t own a time machine, do you?
So let’s start making up some original words that are short. Let’s differentiate you from not only the competition but other companies that you would never think you could be competing with. And for god’s sake, please don’t name your company after local geological features. Let’s dive a little deeper into who you are and what you do and we promise you won’t be disappointed with the outcome.