Choosing a Name for a New Web Design Business

If you're starting a new business, the name you choose is important. For some reason, I find that many people are a little irrational and rushed when making this decision; I've been that way myself. I think it comes from the general feeling of excitement and creativity when in this phase, combined with a desire to make the new business feel concrete and real as soon as possible. Giving it a name feels good; it takes away some of the sense of uncertainty and puts the new business "on the map" psychologically.

There's also a funny kind of infatution that seems to often take over, particularly when people take their little creation's name and begin to design a masthead or logo with it.

There is usually no need to rush the process, yet, that seems all too common. People choose business names without much thought, and without getting feedback from anyone else. This is just not wise. A decision this important should be weighed carefully, shouldn't be made alone, and shouldn't be done in a hurry.

There's one caution in particular I wanted to offer in regard to naming a web design/development business. Naturally, the web site which represents your business will be very important, and its domain name and URL will in turn be very important. Clearly, a simple, memorable URL will be an advantage. Whether they hear about your business through face-to-face networking, advertising, or any other means, if your potential customers can easily remember its web address, and easily spell and type it, they're much more likely to visit your web site. And obviously, having potential customers visit your web site is extremely important.

So, think before choosing that business name! First and foremost, make sure the business name is available in the ideal form as a domain name. Don't pick the business name first, and then go looking at its availability as a straightforward dot-com domain name later. Make the domain name a top priority, and reject any business name which is not available in the simplest, best form as a domain name.

What Not to Do. It constantly amazes me to see the hard-t0-spell domain names people come up with for their businesses, and for no good reason. Here's a story which is a case in point. In order to be sure I don't embarrass the very real person involved, I've changed the details just slightly.

This man's "internet marketing" business has this domain name: www.tuistudioe.com. On the phone with him, I asked for his email address, and he had to spell it out carefully, of course, since it contains no English words at all, and provides no reference point for the average person. To him, "tuistudioe.com" sounds lovely, like familiar music, I'm sure, but it meant nothing to me.

Out of curiousity, I asked him how he came up with that kind domain name. Here is his explanation, almost a textbook lesson in how to take a decent concept and turn it into a useless business name.

He wanted to focus on accessability and usability, so he decided to base his business name on the phrase "The Usable Internet". Okay, not too bad. "usableinternet.com" or even "theusableinternet.com" might be a pretty good domain name, if it was available. But he wanted to use the word "Studio", so it turned into "The Usable Internet Studio". But that seemed too long to him, and probably is. And likely he was under the familiar delusion that three-letter acronyms make good business names. After all, there are a lot of big successful companies with three-letter business names! That must be the reason they're successful, right? So he shortened "The Usable Internet" to "TUI". Now, if the domain had ended up as "TUIStudio.com", this would only be a slightly ridiculous story. But wait, there's more! When he checked for the dot-com domain name, "TUIStudio.com" wasn't available - so he added an "e" to the end of the word "studio", producing a spelling which doesn't exist anywhere in the English language and has no reference to anything in reality at all, and ended up with "TUIStudioe.com".

What can I say - this amazed me. I guess it could only have been sadder and more funny if he had thrown in a few hyphens, and chosen an obscure domain extension as well. And the point is: he could have chosen any business name he wanted - one with the perfect .com name available.

So, my suggestion is: choose your web design business name based primarily upon whether the name, in a simple form without hyphens, is available as a dot-com domain name. And don't be in a rush!