Dmitriy N. Full-Stack Developer

How to name your online store or service?

Congratulations! You just made an awesome online store or service. Launched your ad campaign. It caught the eyes of people, they went out to look for your site. And… Cannot find it. Some people couldnt remember the name. These people either stopped searching or started looking up your services and ended up in your competitors hands. That's unfortunate.

How to name your online store or service so that people could immediately find you? Your name should be memorable!

Your client might look up your website after days, weeks or even months after seeing your ad. You have to make sure that all this time your name sticks. What name will be stuck in your clients head like a headcrab from Half life? Here's a few rules.

Rule 1

People can remember only things that they understand. Remember that a good majority of your clients don't know foreign languages. If you want to underline the forgien origins of your company use simple words. For example you can hint at a french origin by using prefixes like Bon or Le. A name like ‘Fromage Malodorant” (smelly cheese) is best to leave behind, if you don't know French it just looks like a random set of letters.

Technically you can promote any name, even if it has 150 letters and is written in a dead language. The only question is how much money will it cost, and will it recoup the investment.

Rule 2

The human brain is a kin to a Blue Jay, it likes things to be shiny. In other words, colorful and bright. If your name is unique, unlike any other it will be remembered. Even if it's not associated with your service. For example the biggest online store is called… That's right, Amazon.com. When naming your store remember to be different from your competition.

But don't overdo it. Be careful with things like word play, puns, word combination and other lexical tricks. Usually these ‘artsy’ approaches are only understood by their creators.

Fun fact:

Amazon was originally supposed to be called Cadabra. The name was changed when they realized that it sounded a lot like Cadaver (fancy word for dead body). Today everyone knows about Amazon, the biggest online store in the world!