What to Check Before Naming Your Business or Blog

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HERE’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED TO CHECK BEFORE NAMING YOUR BUSINESS OR BLOG.

The process of naming your business is a uniquely personal journey, regardless if you choose to use your own name or use a different name for your business.

But what happens once you’ve decided what you want to name your business?

How do you get from thinking “yeah, that would be a good business name” to actually making it the name of your business?

Whether you have decided to use your own name or a different name of your choice, there are several things you need to check before officially naming your business.

WHAT TO CHECK BEFORE NAMING YOUR BUSINESS

1. Check to see if the domain name is available. The domain name is the url or website address for the business. You buy a domain (and website hosting) through a company like Dreamhost. But before you can buy it, you need to see if it’s available. Just like with real-life real estate, you need to check to see if someone else owns that lot on the corner before you can buy it.
2. In order to check to see if the domain name you want is available, go to Dreamhost.com and go to their domain section. You can type any name in, like “Laura Radniecki” or “Garden Grow” for example, and see if the domain is taken. I own LauraRadniecki.com because it’s the url of my craft blog, so if you search for it, it will show up as unavailable. If the domain for the site you want to create is already taken, you can either choose a url that ends in .net or .co or some other form that isn’t yet taken, or you can change your domain name.
   
3. Do a Google search for the name. You want to see what comes up when you search for the name you’re thinking of, both to see if there’s a business already using that name, and to see if the search results that come up are good or bad.
4. Check social media handles to see if they are available. In a perfect world, your business name, domain name, and social media handles would all be the same across the board. I have Laura Radniecki for my website name, LauraRadniecki.com for my blog domain, and I have @lauraradniecki on Instagram and Twitter, and I have pinterest.com/lauraradniecki on Pinterest. It makes it extra easy having it the same across the board. You can alter the name slightly; my Facebook business page says facebook.com/lauraradnieckiimages because facebook.com/lauraradniecki is already being used for my personal facebook page.
5. Check the hashtag: In today’s digital world, hashtags are huge. Though not a deal breaker, it’s an added bonus if your business name’s hashtag hasn’t been used yet. A hashtag is the # symbol, following by a word or multiple words. It serves as a way to group posts together on social media, so you can search for all of the posts that are related to that hashtag and see them together. For example, I can use the hashtag #lauraradniecki on all of my posts across social media, and when I click on that hashtag, it groups all of my posts together for easy viewing.

Once you’ve done a google search using the prospective business name, and looked up to see whether the domain and social media handles, as well as the hashtag are available, you are ready to move forward with securing your business name!

It’s time to buy that domain name on Dreamhost, make an email address, and register those social media handles!

And then, it’s blog time!