1. Identify who your serving & who you’d most like to serve.

We call this your client avatar: a persona of your ideal client. Who are they? Male? Female? Age? What do they do on the weekends? What beliefs do they have? Hell, even give ‘em a name. Once you have your client/customer avatar it’s easier to speak that “persons” language.

2. Identify your ideal client’s buzzwords.

From your client avatar, you can decide on buzzwords for those kinds of people. For example, Namaste is a buzzword for people who are interested in natural health, & wellness, whether you’d use it for an apparel company, Namaste Apparel, or for a yoga studio, Namaste Yoga or Namaste Studio. You can utilize this list of buzzwords later as SEO words to target, content to create, or even hashtags to use in social media later.

Having trouble coming up with buzz words? Try these:

• Look up synonyms for the word (s) you have already written down.

• Read over the names on this list of spiritual business names, perhaps combine a couple to make a new name.

• This one is part word list – part generator to mix & match your own!

• Use an online word generator like this one.

Bonus Tip: Don’t use words that are misspelled, hard to pronounce, or hard to remember/spell

3. Plan for your future

Decide if you want the title of what you do in the name such as “Namaste Yoga” or if you want the name to represent a group, place, or entity – this would be the option to choose if you intend on branching out. Using the same example as before, it could be something like “Namaste Studio”  Then your tag line can include Yoga & Cafe or no tag line at all.

4. Make sure the domain & social media handles are available.

While they don’t have to be exactly the same as your brand name, you definitely want them to be as close as possible to the same thing for every customer touchpoint. I like to use this domain checker from GoDaddy.

5. Final step: Check for the legality of your new name

Usually, if the domain name is available & the social media handles you should be in the clear, but to make sure all your areas are covered follow this blog post from Broadly for the exact steps to ensure you have no upcoming lawsuits on your hands (for your business name that is).

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