Just because we are catering to a busy business is not an excuse to delay a project. We are busy too, making out time to meet with our clients, discuss the work and strategize our next steps. If a business is too busy to meet and discuss essential details when we show up on their doorstep, they are very likely to be just as busy for any over the phone meetings. So if you are being hammered, and we are trying to connect with you, do call or visit us at your first opportunity so that we can get your project under control and address any next steps we need to take. Anyone who takes more than 6 months to address a current project is deemed to have abandoned their account. We have work we can do, and we do want to address your projects, but most projects need to be addressed regularly and closed before moving onto new ones.

With that word of caution out of the way, what kind of support do we offer at Symbiotic Design?

Name Choice

As stated throughout this website, and most likely in person as well, "Branding is Everything." Everything you do is branded by the community you serve to become your business reputation. But you do have control over your brand from the outset, and you can use that as an advantage to leverage your brand in a positive light from the get-go.

So, even from your own conceptualization of your business, there are things to consider before you even come to us.  The business name alone is a huge hurdle.  Choosing a good one can give you a leg up.  There are many options for this, often people are using their surname(s).  But do consider whether or not a name is easily communicated.  Schmidt is an easier name to communicate than Schmitlaf.  This is just a simple example, but if this is your name, do your friends call you Smitty?  Smitty is the easiest of all to communicate.

The radio test is a simple way to address how easily a name is communicated, you don't have a TV text to lean back on. If you say a business name out loud, what are the people around you hearing? Often, even lyrics are misunderstood. One great way to find out is to use the telephone to communicate your business name ideas to friends and see if they get it, or not. How hard is it to communicate your nbame idea? If you have to spell it out, or otherwise explain it, that name fails the test. 

The Business Domain Name

Once you are starting to zero in on a name idea, you have to take in consideration the limits of technology. If your business name is too long, you may not even want to consider using it as a domain name based simply on the fact that people are just too lazy, and most do not even like to type a long domain name into the web browser bar.

According to common premium domain name guidelines, a company name, brand or slogan should not be used as a domain name if it is over 16 characters long. Yet, you don't want to use anything longer than 20 characters, for sure. Because the longer a domain name is, the more opportunity a falible human has to mispell it. This is further compounded by the fact that spellcheckers are often introducing errors with autocorrect.

Certainly, short and simple is the way to go, But that introduces a few other issues we should address. Certainly, the shorter a URL is, the more expensive it can be. For instance, all the single letter (and number) names are long gone, many moons ago. The same can be said for all letter names (LLL.com) to 5 places (LLLLL.com). Those were bought-up by individuals & companies that are intent on reselling them for a profit. 

There may be some 5 letter domain names still available, but these are rare and likely will have problem letters (F, Q, X, Y & Z are considered tough letters).  But even though these may become available, will they really address your need?  

There are plenty of ways to go.  If you have a law firm under the name Kutak, Rock, Campbell, Novak & Peters maybe KRCNP.com is available, but do not get KutakRockCampbellNovakPeters.com, it is just too long. In cases such as this, think about what your potential client might search for at Bing, Yahoo or Google when he or she needs a lawyer? OmahaLaw.com or NebraskaAttorney.com would be excellent for a lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska.  WestsideNYCLaw.com would be good for a law firm on the westside of New York City, as it only has 14 characters, and it's easily understood when communicated.  Perhaps it isn't available, but this example assists a search engine in geolocation and therefore may more readily present that website a little sooner than another when someone is searching for "lawyer NYC westside".

More likely, a person is going to be searching for a criminal, accident, divorce, will, patent, banking or rights lawyer. So don't be ashamed of any label you can own. I know, labels are not ideal, but they are words and some become keywords. What keywords would your ideal client use to define what you offer? I live in Sioux Falls, SD.  If I didn't already have Symbiotic Design (which itself is a challenge to promote because so few know how to say or spell it), I might try DakotaMarketing.com

Unfortunately, a majority of the domain names you lookup (at Domain Hostmaster or Domainance, I hope) will be taken. Some names are registered, but still available for sale as a premium domain, at a premium price.  Most of these are the 'dot com (.com) Top Level Domain (TLD) name extension. But in the US, this is the definitive domain extension.  

There are others available.  Right now (as of this writing), there are