What's In A Name

Google is the master of all that is business.

They are in the business of words and you can only be found with the right words being plugged into the almighty search box.

So instead of spending big money on website addresses [the url] make sure the name of your company is something unique. A word that intrinsically means something but that doesn't stand for a particular service or product. Like Starbucks. What is the percentage of people in the world that know this is a reference to Moby Dick?

Do you think if I'm looking for business.com I'm going to punch in the website address directly to the browser or I'm going to go to google? Google is God. We actually take an extra step using it even when we know the actually web address.

The results when searching for "business" ain't pretty. Especially if you are new to the field. the other reason is that web savvy gogglers are going to avoid terms like this as well. We already know we won't find anything we are really looking for so we search for more particular topics or even ask a question.

So shelve the url fetish and embrace looking for a name that doesn't show up on google. Find a name that will show up today, at the top, in a perfect world. Not just any name or an ad-style name but a name that embodies something that your brand can be. Like boing boing and Starbucks and now Xango.

So, you want to start a business and you think branding is important. Start with a name that google won't eviscerate in the search ethos.

Don't do it the way we've done it, find the name then the tag line. I wonder what No Money Marketing could become?

Your thoughts are welcome.

p.s. I'm not sure we'll really ever have to worry about the .com part again either. As long as the first words can be located at google you'll be safe with any combination of letters after the period.

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