Choosing your name online

What’s in a name? A lot, when it comes to consistency across the web. If somebody searches for you on Twitter using your domain name, but your Twitter handle is different, your company’s Twitter feed might not show up. The same goes for platforms such as Instagram and LinkedIn. Without a consistent name across all of those platforms, potential customers will have trouble finding you.

Figuring out an alias for your company isn’t always as straight forward as it sounds.

Pick your alias early

Although it’s not always possible, the ideal time to start brainstorming an online name for your business is before you’ve even come up with an offline name for your business.

With an existing name you might find yourself struggling to come up with an alias that will fit. Trust us, we know. “T&S Online Marketing” didn’t fit as an online alias, which is why we came up with “tandsgo.”

If you’re also in that boat, I’m sorry. But if you aren’t or know an entrepreneur who isn’t, remind them that whatever name they come up with will have to be on all of their social profiles – so keep length in mind.

Check availability

To be consistent, you have to come up with something that isn’t being used by another company on any of the major social platforms.

Luckily, there are tools available to help you find a name that hasn’t been taken by anybody else across multiple platforms. Our favorite is at www.namechk.com. We like namechk.com because not only does it let you know if a name is available for social profiles, it also lets you know if domain names are available for that name as well.

Other name checking tools are available at places like knowem.com and checkusernames.com.

If you’re thinking about using your domain name as your company’s online alias, there’s a catch. The name might be too long. When you’re coming up with an alias, remember that Twitter only accepts a 15-character handle. So if you have a really long domain name, you might be out of luck.

Be consistent

Consistency is the most important part of an alias, because you want to ensure that no matter where a customer might search for you, you’ll be easily found. So come up with a concise and appropriate alias, check to see if it’s available across platforms and domains, and you’ve found yourself a good alias!