Google has trillions of web pages in it’s indices, how are your customers going to find your website out of the hundreds of competitors out there?

When you’re picking a name, run it past Google. If you see a website url or website title that matches that name, then you already have stiff competition because someone else has already established a top position for that key word. Even if the top websites that come up aren’t competing businesses, the fact that they come up first when you search for them means that you’ll have to compete with them for that key word.

Here are some tips for picking Google friendly business names:

1. Don’t pick names or phrases with ambiguous meanings or results. “Candy Shop” is a horrible name for a business even if you’re in the confectionery industry because it’s a song by 50cents. Not only will you be competing against other confectionery companies, but you’ll be competing against 50cents and you’re almost guaranteed to loose.
2. Pick a name that currently has no Google ads appearing in search results. Google Adwords operate on a keyword based auction system, so if you want to advertise your business with Google ads, it’s much cheaper for you to be the first ad that comes up. If there is no competition, then you’ve already won the advertising war. Furthermore, having high ranking ads is a quick way to gain page rank if people find you to be more relevant.
3. Don’t pick names where someone else has already established a dominant search position. ‘watch it’ is a bad name because a Canadian watch company is the obvious first result that comes up.
4. The easiest way to win is to be the only one competing. This tip speaks for itself and generalizes the three points above.

All these tips tell you to avoid competition if you can, which is especially relevant if you’re a niche business. They’re not as relevant if you’re trying to take over the top position for a key word. That’s much harder to do and much more expensive. If you’re just starting out (the picking a name stage generally counts as “starting out”), then you want to avoid that until you have the resources to do so.

You don’t need the most relevant key word to your business, because the most relevant keyword for you maybe the most relevant keyword for a lot of other people and you’ll end up sharing that “relevance” if you’re competing against them. Think of a niche name for your business, so when people search for you, that’s the first thing that comes up because no one else has tried to use that name before.

I don’t mean to pick names that are completely meaningless one word utterances like a lot of “web2.0″ companies are doing because they’re hard to remember and it’s easy for a customer to forget what services you actually provide. For that to work, you have to wow your customers to make sure the remember you and make them keep coming back. That in itself is hard enough. Instead pick a name that’s relevant to your business, so you’ll be remembered. If they can remember your name, then they will be able to search for you. The most searched term on Google in the last few month has been “facebook”. People will search your name on Google even if the URL is obvious!

To recap. Pick a business name that
1) is relevant to what you do – because you want to be remembered
2) avoids search keyword competition – why make it harder on yourself when you don’t have to?