{"id":145,"date":"2011-12-27T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T08:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.coachingwebsites.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2019-08-23T09:44:08","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T16:44:08","slug":"what%e2%80%99s-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/%3Fwhats-in-a-name","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s In A Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"William<\/a><\/p>\n

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”\u2013 even if you called it a daisy, \u201cthat swirly pink thing on the plant over there,\u201d ros, rosa, roos or, in Indonesian, \u201cbunga mawar.\u201d However, if you were searching online for a dozen roses, it would really help if you knew you to call roses by name. Likewise, if you wanted to sell roses, it would really help if you advertised them by name.<\/p>\n

Since you\u2019re not promoting rose bouquets, but a service-oriented business, it helps to have a name. Since many of our customers are single-practitioner offices, many use their given name as their business name, but this may still lead to complications. For many of us, we get a name, we stick to it, and maybe we add some titles to it afterwards. But sometimes there are complexities and subtleties to consider.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To make sure that you\u2019re presenting a consistent image, both to clients and to search engines, you must be consistent about your personal brand; your name!<\/p>\n

My uncle Bob\u2019s full name is Robert. And yes, most of us still know Bob is short for Robert, but if you\u2019re looking for \u201cBob Collins\u201d under \u201cR\u201d for \u201cRobert,\u201d you might have some issues. Likewise, it may take some people a second to realize who Richard Cheney is, even if they remember Jack Kennedy and can guess who I mean when I refer to Bill Shakespeare. But, when I had a roommate I called \u201cJim,\u201d I\u2019d forgotten his birth certificate said James when his aunt called looking for Jimmy. Your best practice is to be consistent. You can be William, Will, Willy, Bill, or call yourself Billiam, but choose one for everything you have your name on. This is especially important to consider with common names. If your business card lists you as \u201cJames Jameson,\u201d your website as \u201cJim Jameson,\u201d and you answer the phone with \u201cThis is Jimbo,\u201d you run some risk of confusion, especially when someone is looking things up alphabetically.<\/p>\n

Titles<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the most part, titles in business promotion do not refer to Mr.\/Miss.\/Mrs.\/Ms., but to \u201cDr.\u201d or other professional titles. Usually you don\u2019t need to add Mr.\/Miss.\/Mrs.\/Ms. unless your name is considered gender neutral to most people in your area and you wish to avoid confusion. If you have multiple titles, you may or may not wish to list them all. Whatever you chose to list yourself as, it\u2019s best to be consistent for all business promotion.<\/p>\n

Name changes<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you anticipate changing your name, for whatever reason, consider starting to promote your new name ahead of time. For instance, if you\u2019re just signing up for online promotion, and know your wedding and connected name change is next month, it will be better in the long run to either hold off for the month or simply start using your new name for this context. Once people see your name a certain way, they tend to repeat it that way. It\u2019s much easier to be consistent with the one term you\u2019d prefer.<\/p>\n

In most cases, you\u2019ve been using your old name for a while, and people know you by it. It\u2019s everywhere: in print, online, etc. One solution is to simply include all relevant names in initial references. For instance, if Jane Doe marries John Smith, and takes his last name, she might have text on her website such as:<\/p>\n

Jane Doe Smith does such and such. Mrs. Smith also does this and that.<\/p>\n

-or-<\/p>\n

Jane Smith (formerly Jane Doe) does such and such.<\/p>\n

The specifics of how you do this depend on the name change, of course, and can be done a number of ways. The general idea is to allow anyone looking for Jane Smith to easily see that Jane Doe who they found is indeed the Jane Smith they\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

Your name vs. Business Name<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of our customers have small, often one-person, businesses. When a man named \u201cDr. John Johnson\u201d has \u201cDr. John Johnson\u201d (or \u201cDr. John Johnson, LLC\u201d) as the business name, drjohnjohnson.com, this is easy enough to work with. If however, Dr. John is the owner and sole employee of \u201cCityville Services, Inc,\u201d he needs to consider which name is used to promote his practice. Either one is usually fine in terms of business promotion, but the goal is to make it easy for his clients to connect the business he runs with the business he promotes.<\/p>\n

Regarding business names, one of the biggest mistakes made by small businesses is the false assumption that people (or search engines, directory listings, or whatever) can and will connect different names. If John above refers to his business as \u201cCityville Services, Inc.\u201d on his website, but takes out ads for Cityville Service Co., he\u2019s functionally advertising a different business. This is especially worth noting if you have \u201cInc.,\u201d \u201cCorp.,\u201d or \u201cLLC\u201d etc in your name. In terms of promotion, whatever you decided your business name is, you will do yourself a disservice if you are not consistent with exact repetition of the business name.<\/p>\n

In summary, my advice to you is to stop and think a bit about what your \u201cbrand name\u201d is. Of all the ways you can refer to yourself, which works best when you think of yourself as a company? Pick that one. If you\u2019ve already picked a name, stick with it, check on it, make sure it\u2019s what you are referred to online and in business situations. It\u2019s one of many situations where just a few extra minutes can mean big long-term payoff.<\/p>\n

Rich M \u2013 CoachingWebsites Listings
\nEmail any questions to Support@CoachingWebsites.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”\u2013 even if you called it a daisy, \u201cthat swirly pink thing on the plant over there,\u201d ros, rosa, roos or, in Indonesian, \u201cbunga mawar.\u201d However, if you were searching online for a dozen roses, it would really help if you knew you to call roses by name. Likewise, if you wanted to sell roses, it would really help if you advertised them by name. Since you\u2019re not promoting rose bouquets, but a service-oriented business, it helps to have a name. Since many of our customers are single-practitioner offices, many use their given name as their business name, but this may still lead to complications. For many of us, we get a name, we stick to it, and maybe we add some titles to it afterwards. But sometimes there are complexities and subtleties to consider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing","category-marketing","tag-rich-m"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14313,"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/14313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coachingwebsites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}