Okay. So today's topic is how to name your business. So if you're just starting out this, isn't going to be an area that has a few different circles, right? There's got like emotion, what you want to do with branding. And then the sort of underlying thing, which is, you know, does the name really say what you're doing? And if it does, or if it doesn't, can you afford to attach all of the search and SEO that you would need to that name so that people can actually find you for what you do do? So, um, in the past, I mean, this naming your business, got some interesting history, right? Back in the days of the yellow pages, a lot of people name themselves a one best plumbing or, uh, a and B ice cream shop or something. Why? Because that was the beginning of search optimization was people wanted to be at the front of the phone book, right? 

When you open up the first page, they were the ones. So the classic was a one best moving company or something like that. Right. And you still see those names around today. Those are artifacts from when the phone book was search. Okay. So now we of course have Google and other search engines online and business directories and all these other places where you can get listed. And while a is still typically the top of the list. In some cases, if it's alphabetical, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's what somebody's searching for when they're looking for your product or service. So there are a few things to way one is what do you actually offer? What is the product or service? And could you in fact, capture that in your name, in a meaningful way so that if somebody was searching for you, they would find it and then get introduced to your brand. 

Okay. So there's that objective? The other objective is that, you know, you want a unique brand feel. Now there's some legal ramifications for this too, for you to know also you really can't trademark a words in the English language that are in the dictionary, however, you can trademark a made up word, right? So Nike is a great example of that, right? Nike is not in the dictionary as a real word. It's just a made up name. Okay. And the reason that it's made up is because then they can own it. So there's some to that as well as you may want to make up a name so that you can own it. And you see this with drug manufacturers and a lot of companies, well, you know, come up with a way to a made up word that they can wholly own and trademark. So that's a consideration to put into the pieces of puzzle that you're going to put this all together now for my money for local businesses. 

I like to just say what it is, if you're a small local business, I like to say what it is. So it's, you know, um, the name of your thing and maybe the town or the town name and the thing, and keep it simple and don't get all artsy-fartsy on it. I mean, if your objective is to make money, not necessarily be cool, right? So, uh, you know, if that would be a completely different conversation, if you were launching a clothing brand or something like that, because there are some different things going on with that, when you launch a clothing brand, you can have the cool name of the brand, whatever that is. And then on your website, you're going to have all these keywords, like tee shirt and jeans and whatever it is that the clothing sells. So you're still going to be able to get all of those search relevant terms in there, if you're a local business and, uh, you know, you, you, you're just on main street and you want people to find you a lot of times, it's better to just be main street optric up, uh, optician or, uh, optometrist. 

I'm sorry. Right. So you may just want to be your town and optometrist and just call it that and keep it simple, because it's going to be the most relevant name when you start building your websites and so forth. And it's also going to be the most relevant. When people talk about you, they're gonna be like, Oh, go to Smithtown optometrist and get your glasses. Everybody goes there simple. Right? Cause your deal is, get into business and get going quick, not get bogged down in artsy, fartsy stuff in that category. Now, if you're trying to do something else, like a lifestyle brand or something like that. Yeah. You've got other considerations. So you need to honor those as well, but you still want to make sure that you're going to have those underlying, uh, key terms. They're going to connect people, looking for you with your website properties. 

Now one solution we've done in the past is a kind of hybridized way of handling that we've allowed the owners to run their brand, whatever that might be. And then we've done kind of like a sub tagline, right? So it might be, um, uh, Jacqueline's optometry and now say Smith town's number one, optometrist or something like that, or best of Smithtown or something like that. And we might put a little tagline, the title, and we might even use that into the URL and so forth so that you can use the brand, but co-brand and Cole search, if you will, or, you know, coal label that and search with the locale and the relevancy for that location. So those are some things, there are some ways to hybridize the conversation, right. Between having the brand and having relevancy to, um, wherever you are, whatever you do. 

Cause those are kind of the two factors, right? It's what do you do? And where are you for local search? Okay. And then you have branding is the third piece. All right. So try to rank those things. White boredom. It takes a, I've gone through this process with some people. It takes a week. Some people, it takes eight weeks. Um, don't judge yourself on necessarily anything except for your own timeline. And it's got to feel right to you because I can tell you that once you invest in your business name, it's gonna be a long, you know, it's, it's expensive and it's a long process to build up the reputation around that brand, the website, all these assets, you know, your printed material, your shirts, your staff stuff, your PA, whatever it is, they end up spending money on. You know, you don't want to go backwards and hate it any year. 

So take your time, do it right. And spend some time on Google and see what's out there. That's competitive. That might be using the same name. You don't want to step into somebody else's really established naming and never be able to rank your business because they're just going to step on you forever. Um, so you know, you, you have to think about that too. So you got to spend a little bit of time doing research about what's out there. Find where you can fit into a, you know, a void that nobody's taken up on or what you want to do with branding and, or your personal naming plus honor, 

Uh, make sure that your business is going to be relevant for search terms and so forth. Okay. So those are kind of the different marks. If this helped you get through some of that and or you need more help, that's fine. Get ahold of us.