Choosing your new business name will depend on a lot of factors – are you wanting to convey a corporate image, or a creative image? Should your name be short and catchy, or a little longer and more descriptive? Aside from these important decisions, the 5 tips below are certainly worth consideration when choosing your new business name!
Ensure the potential business name is first of all available to register as a trading name in Australia. You can check online whether or not it is already taken, or is too similar to an existing business, using this tool on the ASIC website.
Check that the business name (or something relate-able) is available as a domain using our domain availability checker. Most Australian businesses opt for the .com.au domain extension to be their primary domain. Having this extension can help to build a sense trust and legitimacy with your visitors, and can assist your website to rank higher to Australian-based users in search engine results as opposed to more generic domains such as .com.
Check your name is available in the most common generic domain extensions, such as the .com and .net versions. You can once again do this via our domain availability checker.
While owning these additional domains is not necessary, it can certainly be good to still own them and redirect them back to your primary domain. This is especially relevant if you intend to sell your products or services internationally.
If the generic domains are not available, but you’d still like to go ahead with your chosen domain name and just own the .com.au version of it, it may be worth checking what sort of websites are published on the .com and .net versions of your domain choice. If they are very similar to your business, it may be best to choose another name to avoid potential confusion for your customers. For instance, a customer may try to find your website and accidentally type in your domain address with the .com extension, rather than the .com.au extension, and mistake one of your competitors for you, resulting in a loss of business.
Check your potential business name is available on all of the social networks you intend to use. Namechk is a handy tool that can show you username available across a huge variety of social media platforms in one simple search.
It is a good idea to ensure your business/domain name is an appropriate length. Consider your email address for example. If you choose [email protected], it may be difficult for your customers to remember and/or type in your email address.
Likewise, it may be less memorable if they see your website address on marketing material and try to type it in later. If you do choose a long domain, you may also choose to register a shortened abbreviation to use for your email address and/or marketing materials.
