Business name and website name

Hi Paula
WobblyJobs is being rebranded unfortunately.

In the run up to this process I went through the same pain when trying to brain storm. I just kept going around in circles.

I spent a couple of hours with a marketing bod and she taught me a totally different way to look at branding.

1: demographic
This step i admit I missed out completely. pay attention to your customers likes, dislikes, shopping preferences and there outlook on life.
take a look on statistics.gov.uk lots of invaluable info there.

This excercise may seem benile but it helped me enormously.
2: brain storming
step away from the computer and grab yourself some post-its and a pen.
firstly in the middle of a wall write down the description of your demographic.
eg female 30-40 reads the telegraph, shops at waitrose.
then ignoring your keywords "interior design" start to write down words that are applicable to your demographic. shopping, shoes, chocolate and group them together. eg shopping and shoes are a match.
spend a coupld of hours working on this then stop walk away and leave the post-its where they are.

Bear with me as I was a skeptic but it does work.

each time you walk past eliminate any words that are not applicable and add any others that you may think as applicable.

dont look at the words on the wall for an immediate answer but what this excercise did for me was to stop the mental cyclical process I was stuck in.

3:Test your keywords
This was a hard one for me due to the time scales I had infored by myself due to my launch date.
try to find someone imparcial show them your demographic and your selected keyword and ask them what the word provokes.

I hope I am not teaching my mother to suck eggs but for me it was an invaluable method to have learnt.

for your URL you are correct on the keyword front for SEO purposes it is good practice to have your most popular keywords in the title. but dont get obsessed by this just go with the flow.

and I hope my new branding will stand up in the market place and have some longevity..


I dont want to hi jack your thread but my new company name is....

Domain Names - JobsVitae.Com Domain Name Parking

The SEO keyword combination is solid gold it is applicable to my demographic and it stands out from the crowd.

I hope this post helps you out.

Hi Paula

My forts then for what they are worth.

Speaking to the guys her about tinternet and all that the long co.uk name you mentioned is just that...LONG. i didn't realise it s what is on the site that gets picked up so you could even get away with your initials say..mnid.co.uk (id being interior design) if twere available that is.

Names of company then? I have never liked (and it is just that, me) a Christian name followed by the company name. I find it a little trite and bland.

Far better (IMO) to use a full name. (assume surname is say...'princess')

Paula-Princess Interior Design Co. works better I feel.

Just my twittering thoughts on your question:-)

Mike

Had this conversation a few times over the last few days, pick a short and memorable domain name, do not go for the search engine trick of getting paula-does-interior-design.co.uk as I explained to a fellow forumer yesterday, you can still satisfy the search engines aswell as your clients remembering it.

For example:

pidesign.co.uk/interior-design-prices.html
pidesign.co.uk/interior-design-warwick-contact.html

and a past client will remember pidesign.co.uk a lot easier than paulainteriordesign.co.uk as if they get one letter wrong, Google will suggest other websites, and they may go elsewhere if they like what they see on another site!

think long and hard, measure twice, cut once!

I reckon choosing a business name and a URL has to be one of the hardest jobs of all!!

Can't really offer any inspiration, my creative juices have run dry, but some good tips above from the forum posse, just dont call yourself wobbly designers

wow thanks guys, some great stuff from Leon

I do like Smarts name of Paula-Princess Interior Design Co Got a nice ring to it

looks like lots of post-it notes and crispy creme donuts. Off to the goverment statistics site. Didnt know there was a goverment site with any useful information out there hee hee

my own ideas so far have been
fantastic interiors, paulas fab interiors, interiors by paula, the lady designer, and the rest are in the reycling bin

how about

hysteria interiors
diva designers

ok, that's it, I'm exhausted