There are a lot of things to think about when building a new company, and a variety of implications to choosing both unique or common phrases to define who, what, where, and why your business is. What does your name say… and who does it say it to?

Michael McDerment from Freshbooks wrote an excellent and detailed post last year that deserves honorable mention about how to define your company name. “When you start a company, eventually you are going to have to choose a company name. You may not take the decision that seriously - but trust me, a great name can make all the difference. As the online marketplace becomes increasingly cluttered it is more important than ever to be memorable and to stand out. […]“

I couldn’t agree more.

The “home turf” of 123SocialMedia is amazingly populated by a huge variety of start-ups, you can check-out the Seattle Start-up Index to see a great list. Literally hundreds of naming projects in action: from business success to dismal failure.

“When you start a company, eventually you are going to have to choose a company name. You may not take the decision that seriously - but trust me, a great name can make all the difference.”

As an online promotion company, we spend a lot of time looking at names from different viewpoint than most: will the name drive traffic? does it differentiate from competitors? is it link-friendly?

Some of those types of questions are addressed in this article: Business Social Media - A Domain Name Guide

Moving into more of a reputation/brand mindset: what types of promotion does a brand name control online? For younger companies brand names can stifle business growth as budget is spent on establishing buzz. For established companies brand names can create value in the entity, rather than the service or product they offer.

When looking at the Seattle business start-up scene, we take a quick look at how a few different levels of business are using names and brand. We also bring in a unique grade: search brand ownership. Search Brand Ownership: is a pretty basic concept. When searching the first page of Google for your brand name, how many positive, neutral, and negative results are present on the first ten results. In order to be good / bad, it must be owned by the company directly, have entirely positive/negative statements, or be completely for / against the business.

Zingbars.com - is a yummy nutrition bar company, Angel funded, started by a few Seattle nutritionists to create the ultimate healthy (and good tasting) bar.

Commentary: Zingbars as a name is “half trendy, half product” and talks to the consumer space they moving into, however the market is crowded by many other players in the snack bar space and brand is very important in the mindset of the consumers market they are dealing with.

Site Stats: Alexa Rating: 3,701,378 Compete: N/A Google Pagerank: 2
Favorable 1st Page Mention: 3
Neutral 1st Page Mention: 6
Negative 1st Page Mention: 1 (an entry for a company site problem)

Biznik.com - Biznik is a business networking community for people who independent professionals. When I last wrote a Biznik review, it was at 9,000 members strong (as of July 18 - 14,000 strong.) It is friends and family funded, driving revenue from a membership model @ $10 to $24 a month.

Commentary: Biznik has been doing fairly well in its space to coordinate members and generate articles for the site. Traffic and time on site is down for the past few months, but membership up.

Site Stats: Alexa Rating: 55,965 Compete: 55,864 Google Pagerank: 5
Favorable 1st Page Mention: 4
Neutral 1st Page Mention: 5
Negative 1st Page Mention:1 (Another community site rank on a community sites name isn’t good - Squidoo, even if it is a Biznik entry.)

Earth Class Mail - Have you ever wanted to check your real world mail from your laptop? Then you probably need Earth Class Mail. Earth Class Mail is funded by $13.3 million.

Commentary: EarthClassMail is a cool concept, the question is simply whether or not they can convince enough people to use the service. I for one, would love to see the end of my junk-mail killing millions of trees.

Site Stats: Alexa Rating: 68,920 Compete: 54,924 Google Pagerank: 5
Favorable 1st Page Mention: 1
Neutral 1st Page Mention: 9
Negative 1st Page Mention: 0

Zillow.com- The Seattle company raised a hefty $87 million in total funding, putting it in an area of lofty goals and deep pockets. They easily have the biggest budget to establish an online presence and a large bank-roll to mitigate the online realm.

Commentary: Zillow has managed offend and befriend almost everyone at some point or another. Sometimes praised as being better than sliced bread, and sometimes being held responsible for housing crash. In either case they know how to generate and ride buzz.

Site Stats: Alexa Rating: 1,466 Compete: 477 Google Pagerank: 7
Favorable 1st Page Mention: 3
Neutral 1st Page Mention: 6
Negative 1st Page Mention: 3 (bad reviews and ratings, one competitive)

Conclusion:

It doesn’t appear that budget level means much in terms of brand ownership on first page results. The mightier and “big budget” Zillow actually has the highest number of bad entries on its own brand. It is almost ironic that the company with the most online traffic going directly to its name (Zillow) is also exposing its brand value to potential attack.

As a company develops through online growth stages, it is far easier to protect brand by establishing a healthy foundation of positive information that supports the overall goal. Knowing what information your name is related to needs to be constantly reviewed and double-checked.

What is your professional or business brand value grade?