Successful marketing begins with successful branding, for law firms or any other industry. Branding is the message you send about your law firm, and marketing is how
you communicate it. Choosing a name for your business is an important early step in building a brand identity. Even though law firms are, by nature, fairly limited in their choices of business names, an identifiable, memorable, but not too unwieldy business name can make your website stand out from an SEO perspective and get name recognition. Once you have chosen a business name for your law firm and a domain for its website, you can start directing traffic to the site and spreading the message about your law firm by regularly updating the site with engaging, informative legal blog content.
Business Names and Domain Names
Your business name is the legal name of your business, the one you listed when you
applied for an employer identification number (EIN) for the law firm. It appears on your business cards and numerous times in the content on your website. A domain name is the name that appears after www. and before “.com” in the website’s URL. Business names and domain names are sometimes the same, but not always. For example, the business name might be Bloggins and Associates, while the domain name could be anything from www.blogginslaw.com to www.toledoestateplanninglawyers.com.
The Pros and Cons of On-the-Nose Law Firm Names
There is a line of thinking that goes that the name of a business should let people know what the business does. The first time you heard of Burger King or Dunkin’ Donuts, you had some idea of what they do. Conversely, literalism is not everything. Apple has never been in the fruit business and the literal meaning of “googol” only indirectly relates to what Google does. If you name your business Bloggins Estate Planning Law, the good news is that people will immediately know what your law firm does. The same goes for the domain name www.toledoestateplanninglawyers.com . The bad news is that those names will become less descriptive if, for example, you also start handling divorce cases or if your law firm opens up satellite offices in Columbus and Cincinnati.
When Are Gimmicks Appropriate?
Is it ever appropriate to give a law firm a catchy name? Perhaps, but a little goes a long way. Most people will not take seriously a law firm whose domain name is www.dontgobrokebeforeyoucroak.com. If humor is one of your selling points, the place to show it is in your fun-to-read blog posts and in your consultations with clients. Not every lawyer has to build a reputation on being the most aggressive or the most stubborn, but when it comes to law firm names, strive for professionalism, not gimmicks.
Business Names Are Just the Beginning
Your business only needs one business name and one domain name, but it needs plenty of content pages and a new blog post at least once per month. Choose the legal content writers at Law Blog Writers to create blog content that communicates your brand identity to your audience.