Name a business

Corporate branding is now one of the most important aspects of running a successful business and it all starts with a name.

Here I will attempt to underline some of the things you should consider when you are researching a name for your business.

Choosing or Changing your business name

There are many tools and wizards online to help you choose an accurate business name, but there is nobody who undersatnds your business as well as you, so there is no substitute for sitting down with a cup of tea and a thesaurus and doing a little brainstorming.

There are several things you may first want to consider.

What products do you sell?

What service do you provide?

The answer to both of these questions needs to be carefully considered. The best chance your business has is if the name perfectly describes what you do, or is very well branded to your company. The latter can be hard to do without a very large budget and exposure, so for now we will focus on how to find names which perfectly describe what you do or sell.

The first thing to decide is your primary service or product. If you offer several, is there an existing term to describe the collective offerings of your company? If you are not sure of this, have a look at some of your competitors, or maybe try and see how they categorise themselves in directories such as dmoz or the yahoo directory. It is worth considering the categorisation of your business from the consumer’s perpective- as an example, I have another business, which is an architectural ironmongers. Architectural ironmongers is a term well known within the industry, but it unfamiliar to almost anybody with no experience of it. Essentially, the business sells door furniture, such as handles, locks and latches, with the main product being door handles. The name is now brnaded around door handles, as this is what the majority of customers are looking for, and they know the company provides them instantly (by contrast if the business was named ‘architectural ironmongery uk’ for example, it would alienate the retail sector who are unfamiliar with the term). Obviously, there are many factors involved in this decision, but my point is really that you should consider the name of your business from a customer’s perspective also.

Its like the spate of business naming that went aroud 20 years ago, where there were countless numbers of ‘A. A. Builders, A1plumbing etc- in desperate attempts to be noticed in phonebooks- the same is true today, but in directory listings, internet search engines and the mind of your customer, it is important to be accurate with your name.

Generic Success

Strong generic keywords that are directly linked to the primary element of your company are very useful in a business name, but where can you find inspiration for these? A good place to look is on a search engine such as google. You can find inspiration from results about your industry keyword, but if you use the keywords tool from google and select the synonyms option, you can get some valuable suggestions, as well as the vlume of searches each month- this can be very useful in determining consumer search habits surrounding your industry.

Deriving a business name from a domain name

If your business will have an online presence, and especially if a large amount of business will be from online endeavours, it may be an idea to base your company name around a domain name that is available to you. Try searching various domain name sites, such as Accurate Name for names relating to your term. You can search for names available to register at most registrars, but be warned, many of these searches are monitored, and you may be disppointed to find a name which was available when you first checked it, has been taken by a company monitoring the search when you come back. Names purchased from a domain broker, such as ourselves, may cost more than just the registration fee, but there are many benefits which certainly outweigh this cost.

Firstly, all the best generic names have been registered. Lets take an example. Let’s say you have a shoe shop, you will be disappointed to see that not only was shoes.com registered in 1994, shoeshop.com in 1997, but also countless variants in different extensions, with every common prefix and suffix in the dictionary. Quite simply, this is because the better names with have a positive effect on the business behind them, whereas worse names can even have a detrimental effect on the company involved - “why?” I hear you ask:-

Authority
Bigger, better, generic names carry with them a natural authority - the consumer will see “Shoes.com” as a reliable, stable, serious business - “Bobsshoesandflipflops.biz” will not carry the same connotations. This trust can be achieved through huge spends on advertising, or by carefully choosing a great name in the first place. The top generic names are often referred to as “category killers” - as they do just that.

Traffic

Some generic names will carry natural search traffic - that is, a ready pool of customers who instinctively type the name with no prior knowledge of the business, just an assumption that it exists- this is only the case with the strongest names, but these “ready-made” customers convert into very real money, so the names are the first to go, and carry the highest prices.

Here we have just touched on some of the most basic fundamentals involved whn you are trying to name your business, there are so many factors involved, and so many which are specific to different business and niches that we cannot even attempt to cover them all, but if you are looking for help nameing your business, then please contact us and we can suggest names to you based on your criteria - just use the contact button above!

We hope to add to this article, developing the importance of branding, and looking at names which are ‘brandable’, as opposed to ‘generic’. This is a hugely important alternative, and often the option companies look to go with to create a unique brand, so come back soon, subscribe to our rss feed, or sign up for our newsletter!

Time well spent

Not much is ever really spoken about the monotony of many domain-related tasks, at least, not in comparison to the number of people I am sure scream profanities at their PC daily over another inconvenient administrative email required, or registrar ‘cock-up’ which needs to be addressed…

I guess the point of what I am trying to say is that not only is being a domain investor time consuming in terms of the amount of research required in finding names, but there are countless responsibilities/obligations/tasks - whatever you want to call them, that holding a portfolio of more than 50 or 60 names starts to demand. (sometimes I feel overwhelmed)

Of course, I am making sweeping generalizations here, and not only am I assuming everybody has a business involving more than just buying/registering names, slapping on ‘auto-renew’ and waiting for a buyer (if only it were always that easy), but I am also not acknowledging that most people, and I really do mean the majority, are better organised than me, which I am certain must be the case. I often think I have my ‘finger in too many pies’ as it becomes harder to remain focused, and I am sure as I roll out more and more developed sites demanding more and more time.

Ignoring these facts, and focusing on what I am trying to say today, I will state that there must still be a lot of domain investors, or domainers, who face a similar problem of having to attend to a number of repetitive tasks.

What am I talking about?

To enlighten the more organised of my ineptitude, and the less-experienced of the pitfalls which may befall them, I will attempt here to underline some of the many problems of time-management which can grow alongside an increasingly sprawling portfolio. The reason I want to do this is firstly, I am particularly bored today having spent a few hours since getting back from my shop organising, adding details and keywords to domains in my main site portfolio, and secondly, I think most people get into the domain investment industry by the lure of residual income, or at the very least the prospect of making good money from very little work. This is possible, but it usually requires a lot if time and effort to get to this position, and, as I am about to illustrate, there are many distractions to mean you must be focused and well organised to achieve your goal.
So, what tasks do i perform with upsetting regularity? (yes, upsetting, there is a lazy man on one shoulder too…)

Firstly, we have

Taking care of/managing domain registrations and renewals

Now this could well not be an issue if you have only a few strong names, or a small portfolio, but most of my points won’t relate to you either, (so you can read on smiling) but renewal management can be a real time eater. Obviously, there are ways you can avoid letting this task from taking over your life- so here are my (mainly unheeded) tips:-

1. Limit your names, have a concise plan and stick to niche’s which you can keep together, develop together or sell together. Names in similar niches are easier to monetise in bulk if you park names. You will also be more likely to serve your names with the best ads using just one or two parking providers- another time-killer.

2. Limit the spread of registrars. Now this is one I do have some difficulty over the years, which I wish I had controlled earlier. A few years ago, when I was beginning to see some potential in the industry as more than just a hobby, I was flipping domains quickly on forums, constantly re-investing profits in more, better domains. This flipping, plus the use of dropcatchers like snapnames, pool, enom and now namejet- led to me creating accounts with more and more various registrars, some of which I am sure I have never heard of when they email me now! By transferring names into one or a few registrars, your portfolio is easier to manage and your time is spared. Note here however, that transferring names in itself can become labourious if you don’t try and keep stringent tabs on where and when you need to do it (many names won at auction cannot be transferred for 60 days due to Icann policy and having just been “transferred” - this means you must wait and keep them monitored until you can do the transfer).

3. Set auto-renewal. Speaks for itself really, I’d recommend setting it up as the account default and checking each name is configured upon arrival in the account. Please note: If you do a lot of tasting, or register a lot of names, or have names at lots of different registrars, you may find yourself getting caught out renewing some you would have dropped if you don’t remain vigilant and take domains you wish to drop off of auto renew on time. One other thing that you may want to look out for is that many registrars offer a consolidated renewal date, allowing you forget about renewals for most of the time.

4. Use tools to lessen the load. There are hundreds and hundreds of tools available on the market, but many of them won’t drastically improve your time spent organising and managing your portflio. One I would recommend is the Domain Research Tool (contact me for a reduced price on this, but I am giving an honest opinion that this tool is worth the money). This tool has so many ways to help you bulk manage your portfolio that I would highly recommend checking it out.

5. Use spreadsheets. You will find it much easier to move data around in batches like this, which is what it is all about sometimes.

6. Remain focused. If I could get back even half the time I spent daydreaming, fun as it was, I am sure I’d be writing this on a beach.

7. Prepare for emergencies. The larger (and better) your portfolio, the more often the case that you can be involved in several transactions at any one time- if you get called away, it can damage your reputation and cause lost transactions- make sure you remain on top of necessary portfolio management and you remember to set aside time to answer emails you might have received.

There are many other considerations which must be given when you have a a growing portfolio. I would advise at all times keeping a well thought out portfolio, which should be well organised (I shall be returning to adding and editing names here after this post), but consider this when you price your names- a few years of renewals may not be just the $20 or so dollars in renewal fees per domain, if you factor in the amount of time spent configuring the domain - logging into change nameservers, checking parking details, adding to any sales sites like sedo.com or your own site - the list goes on; you come to realise there is a cost which you should be compensated for.

Make sure you remember this the next time a potential buyer demands you justify why your domain costs more than $x amount…

Just one small reminder that the newsletter is where it’s at: signup for the best domain newsletter yet to be seen! Signup link here and remember to pop back to Accurate Name!

Accurate Names

This question may seem incredibly obvious to anybody reading. At its most basic level, lets look at it this way My name is Chris, you would not get my attention with a “BOB!” or “PETE!”, well, certainly not as quickly!

There’s very little difference in the fundamental principals of internet domain names. The more accurate a name is to the product, service or information is, the more likely it is to grab a net surfer’s attention.

One of the most important elements in determining a domain’s value is to look at the number of people who search for that phrase each month. There are a number of tools that can do this including wordtracker, old yahoo overture data and google keyword analysis. These metrics help show the domain’s potential, as an accurate name to a searched term leads to benefits in search engine ranking for that term. It is also possible to determine the (approximate) amount of type-in traffic a domain receives, and this is a very valuable asset to a domain. Domains which are extremely accurate are very valuable, and generic domains with direct type-ins usually convert into the highest advertising yields.

This site was formed to allow the marketing of a collection of premium domain names to the public brands which will benefit the most. To stay up to date with th latest domains to come on sale please be sure to sign up for the newsletter.

Domaining Lessons

Well, if there is anybody reading this, (which I do wonder!) you may notice a change in the blog and it’s contents as of this post…

Earlier in the week, it came to my attention over on the domain forum namepros, that my earlier vision for this blog was not being well received, due to the publication of rss content from other blogs. Although this in itself is a common practice, and all posts were linked directly to their respective author’s posts, the posts were being published in their entirety - an oversight on my part due to my inexperience with syndicated feeds.

I had originally decided to start pulling rss feeds from some of the industry’s top blogs after the popular site domaining.com decided to alienate some of its userbase by deciding to charge. Knowing that a fool like myself can put together an rss based site (albeit badly - I’m sure I could have learnt) I can completely understand why people were unhappy at being asked for a membership fee.

Seeing an emerging potential gap and having just installed this site a couple of month’s earlier and yet to begin blogging, I decided to try and build a similar service to domaining.com. I decided that it may drive users to sign up for the newsletter I have been working on (it has a large number of private investors but relatively few ‘domainers’ so far) and failed to consider it might ruffle a few feathers of those who originally wrote the articles.

Upon realising my error I confirmed with many of the authors that it was the reproduction of full articles, and not the syndication which was not permitted. I have since decided that inspite of this, it would be a smarter decision to offer some original thought and put it down to experience. i have removed all syndicated posts so it is a little bare around here now! Brrr! - is it getting colder?

The conclusion

From now on Accurate Name will be my personal blog. I will continue to bring you my ‘pick of the drops’ service, although I have to admit that like most of my online life, this has been neglected in favour of turkey, brussel sprouts and lots of festive obligations. Haha. I’ll introduce a few more features, including an available domain list, some of my development stories, sales, successes and learning experiences like this one. If I am honest i don’t know what direction it will go in, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Happy new year everyone, may it bring prosperity to all who strive for it.