Choosing the right business name is a tricky task. The bad news is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to choose one these days as well. But not all hope is lost.

In this short article I will highlight five key things to consider when choosing a business name. Hopefully these will put you in the right direction and help you avoid any costly mistakes when coming with the ideal name for your business. 

  1. Trade Marks & IP

First and foremost, you need to be mindful of the legal part. This means making sure that your chosen business name does not infringe another business’ intellectual property. 

With business names, this usually concerns Trade Marks. There are several sources such as the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) which you can use to check existing trade marks. 

  1. Number of letters 

The best business name has less than 10-15 letters. However, this can be subjective and vary.

But the general rule of thumb is that the shorter the name the more memorable it will be. 

  1. Domain availability 

Next on the list is checking the availability of a domain name for your business name. Unless you do not require a website, which in this day and age puts puts your business at a very small minority. 

You need to ensure that the relevant domain name is available for your chosen name. 

Here’s a few things to keep in mind and ask yourself during this part:

  • Are all the extensions (e.g. .com / .net / .co.uk and so on) available?
  • Do you need all those extensions?
  • What if another (different) business uses that extension? Would it cause confusion, especially with SEO?

For checking and registering domains, I recommend Namecheap. 

  1. Domain history 

Many  entrepreneurs and companies don’t take domain history into account. For instance, a domain, although suitable in other aspects, may have been used in an illegitimate website before, or it could have a high spam score. 

The latter can considerably affect the “SEObility” of a domain.

One of the most useful tools I have discovered, although it is not strictly useful for domain history, is the WayBack Machine

It allows you to see snippets of a website through a historical timeline. For instance, below is a snapshot of StudyFlats’ (my tech startup)  website from 2016

  1. Social media handles

Last but not least, you have to make sure that the social media handles of your chosen business name are available. 

Ideally you want all handles to be available.  However, depending on your business, one platform may prevail over the other. 

So these are five things to keep in mind when choosing a business name….

If you need help with choosing the right business name, have a look at my full services or book a call with me today. 

About My name is Sohrab Vazir. I’m a UK-based entrepreneur and business consultant. At the age of 22, and while I was an international student (graduate), I started my own Property Technology (PropTech) business, StudyFlats which I scaled to over 30 UK cities. I currently help other entrepreneurs and businesses of all size with the digital marketing strategy around SEO, copywriting and content. For more info, please visit here.