As the number of digital buyers keeps growing every year, building an online business shows a great prospect. If you want to start your eCommerce business but haven’t got a name for it, keep reading. This article will show you the 10 easy steps for how to find the perfect name for your online business.

1. Use Name Generators for Inspiration

Getting the perfect name for your business is not an easy task. Meanwhile, 4.41 million startups went online as of 2002’s last quarter. Meaning, many of the good names must have found their owners.

While using a name generator can be an alternative whenever you’re feeling stuck, it’s a great way to brainstorm a compelling name for your business. Here are the benefits of using a business name generator.

• Time-saving. A generator helps speed up your brainstorming process. With this tool, type in your industry’s name or keywords on the text box and click enter. In a few seconds, it’ll provide various name options.
• Data-based. There’s a high chance that your chosen name is taken, even trademarked. Using name generators ensures the name’s availability.
• Brand-oriented. These tools use your business niche to base their formulation. That said, the generated names will be industry-specific.

2. Research the Market

Researching the market helps you identify if the name will be well-received by your target demographic. This is important as they’re the ones that’ll buy your products or use your services. Therefore, their opinion matters.

For that, build your customer profile – a persona that defines your target market.

When creating one, including age, occupation, gender, interests, and pain points. Suppose you target young people. In that case, make the name fresh and unique to attract their attention. You can also conduct a small study to see if your target market finds your name interesting and brand-reflective. However, you’re looking at an extra cost for this practice.

3. Convey Your Identity

Your business name is among the vital branding elements for your company. It should be able to reflect the industry it’s serving in. Meaning, an excellent business name carries the company identity, explains the products and services, and mirrors the target demographic.

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats ) analysis can be a great tool to determine your brand’s true identity. By breaking down the aspects, you can evaluate your company’s competitive advantages.

4. Align It with Your Niche

Using niche keywords is the best way to let your business name speak for its field. Filter the keywords you want to use and combine them with other words, like an adjective or a noun. Burger King and Taco Bell are some of the great examples of this practice.

Using word-play around the keyword is also a great method to get the perfect name. For example, Quora got its name from the word quorum, which means a group of people who discuss to reach an agreement.

Additionally, you can also make up a phrase that reflects your specialty. Free People did a great job on this. Offering bohemian woman clothing, the retailer targets the youngs who seek freedom in the way they put together an outfit. Thus, the apparel store got its name.

5. Choose a Scalable Name

As your business will get larger over time, you don’t want to change your name just to adjust to the expansion. Doing so gets you to prepare for a business rebrand, which will cost you a fortune. Thus, make sure your business name provides room for growth.

You can do this by excluding geographical origin and not being too specific on one product. For example, if your business name has Arizona in it, you’ll need to erase the part when it expands beyond the state.

The same situation also applies to products.

Amazon, for example. The retailer was originally an online bookstore. But, Jeff Bezos dreamed about having the biggest online retailer globally. Thus, he named his online bookstore after the largest river worldwide, Amazon, to allow some room for growth.

6. Check Its Availability

This little bit of research allows you to make sure your chosen name is free to use. As you want your business name to be distinctive, you need to make sure nobody has claimed it.

Suppose someone has patented your chosen name, and you insist on using it. In that case, you’re looking at purchasing the name from its owner, like what happened with Tesla.

In 2004, Elon Musk had to buy the name for $75,000. Further, Musk spent another $11M to acquire the Tesla.com domain name in 2016.

You can also get yourself sued for trademark infringement. For that, check this trademark archive. If you can’t find any patent on your desired business name, you can claim it and use it as your business and domain name.

Once you’ve found the perfect name, make it trademark-protected. That way, you don’t have to worry about any accusation.

7. Make It Simple

Smart speaker purchases are predicted to reach 23.5 million in 2021. Meaning, more people will use voice-assisted services to help them shop online. Thus, having a short and simple business name is vital for your business growth as confusing name structure makes it difficult to optimize it for voice search.

Here’s how you can achieve name simplicity:

• Keep it short. Keep your business name characters between six and fifteen. Thus, it should only consist of three words at maximum.
• Avoid numerals and special characters. Numerals and special characters complicate the spelling. This can get your target audience on the wrong internet page.
• Check its pronunciation. Make sure your business name rolls off the tongue easily. For that, tell your chosen name to your friends and see if they can get it right.

8. Go for Memorability

While a short and simple name boosts its memorability, a unique name strengthens the impact. That said, this is where your creativity is tested.

Some of the best examples come from Skype and Hotmail.

The former was shrunk from its initial name, Sky-Peer-to-Peer. Meanwhile, the latter came up as the founders insisted their company should end with mail. Later, they chose Hotmail as the name contains HTML – the language they used to build the platform.

9. Consider SEO

Consider if your selected business name reads well on the search engine results page (SERP). For that, use appropriate niche keywords, as they help link your website to the user’s search intent.

However, keep in mind to never stuff keywords. Besides making your business undistinguishable, search engines can also flag it unreliable as it makes the name feel spammy.

10. Test the Name

Getting a second opinion is vital to ensure the brand image you want to build reflects on your business name. You can ask your family and friends how simple the name is and if the meaning is clear enough.

Suppose you get them asking what the name means. In that case, the name hasn’t reflected your company’s vision. Therefore, ask for some suggestions for how to improve it.

Conclusion

Those are the ten easy tips to choose the perfect name for your new online business. While the process seems taxing, you can always utilize a business name generator for inspiration. That way, it’ll be easier to brainstorm as you have a great starting point. Good luck with your new business!