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Insight, Information and Inspiration on women's careers, business, technology and the Industry.
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A good company name can impact how easily people remember you. That instant identification and recognition with your company name comes easier as your company develops a branding presence both online and offline. But as a startup, you can help build the instant branding connection by coming up with a great name that people can say, remember, and spell.
At Webgrrls, we made a naming mistake. Back in 1995 when we were trying to come up with a name that reflected the fun personality behind the company, we came up with webgrrls.com (web women was too boring and webgirls sounded too young). Coming up with a fun name was not the mistake…it was not buying the webgirls.com domain that forced us to come up with creative means of building our brand. When we mention Webgrrls to vendors and clients we always say it with personality and emphasize the GRRL part of it and sometimes even point out that GRR stands for empowerment.
So how can one come up with a name that is meaningful and fun and also helps build brand awareness? Evan Paull of GigaOM suggests a two-part rule:
Look at many of the most successful brands and you’ll notice they’re often compound names, consistently made up of two components:
- a word that relates to the company product in a direct, literal sense, establishing a clear association between the brand and what the company does.
- a word not literally related to the product, but rather a metaphorical adjective to evoke a differentiating characteristic or “feeling” about the company’s product.
Our minds are built to make connections, mostly at a subconscious level. When a metaphor is detected, it triggers a process in our brains that associates the metaphor with the next object or reference. This naming system forces the mind to take the cognitive step of associating the metaphor to the product it represents, thus forming a positive association to the brand. And once your brain has woven the connection, it sticks, so there’s a great chance your company name won’t be forgotten.
Having a good company name will help you tremendously in your grass roots marketing efforts. If people can’t remember the name of your company or remember how to spell it, it going to be hard for them to recommend you to their friends and for their friends to find you once they hear about you.
Evan also points out that “of course there are startups that get so far out in front of their competitive fields, or whose products are so exemplary, that names which ought to have been tricky are nevertheless well received”.
For more resources on finding a perfect name for your company, check out Guy Kawasaki’s guidelines about naming a company or product and an archive of how some successful company names originated.
By: charlene
Posted: June 20, 2008 Topics: Marketing, SEO copywriting, Webgrrls' Finds, Design, Software, Career, Tech Tools, Business Tags: alternative to Visio, bug tracking tool, CSS bug fixes, CSS design, CSS layouts, diagram tool, flowchart tool, project management tool, SEO blunders, SEO tips, site search
There are so many great articles that can really teach you a thing or two - but unfortunately they seem to be lost amongst numerous other “less-meaty” ones. Here are 5 recent postings that may help you do your job or run your business more effectively.
How to Kill CSS Bugs
Have you ever been frustrated because your CSS layouts are rendering differently between browsers? Or are you still trying to figure out how to achieve a certain look with CSS? This Noupe article covers more than 20 fixes for issues relating to fixing IE bug, positioning block elements, creating columns & tables, working with floats and more.
A Free Alternative to Visio
If you’re looking for a robust flow chart and diagram tool, you’ve most likely already looked at Microsoft Visio. But if you’re not ready to shell out the bucks for the program, a great alternative is the free, open source application, Dia.
SEO: What Not to Do
Life is a never-ending joust for the folks working in Search Engine Marketing. Just when you think you’ve figured the search engines out, they change their algorithms. This article from SEOmoz shares some tips on targeting multiple terms and phrases on a single page and also highlights the “tricks” to avoid.
The Best $100 You Ever Spent
If you are running a website for a small to mid-size company you should jump on this tool (if you haven’t already). Google has re-launched its Custom Search Business Edition service as Google Site Search. Starting at $100 per year (or free if you don’t mind Google ads on your site), this site search application will index your entire website and help users to find what they are looking for. New features allow you to input synonyms, boost the page ranking of newer content and determine which search terms are not returning results.
Free Project Management Tool for Startups
Running a startup is never easy but thankfully there are companies out there that want to give you a break. Fog Creek Software is one such company. It provides its FogBugz on Demand project management tool free of charge for 2 users to students and startups. And not only is it an excellent project management application, it also has tremendous bug tracking abilities. If you don’t qualify for the free version, it can be purchased for $199 or less or as a hosted solution for $25/month.
 Net Neutrality is an issue that could affect each one of us and is an important issue that will shape the future of the Internet. At the National Conference for Media Reform, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps was clear with his message: “We must have enforceable principles of Internet non-discrimination”.
From Wikipedia:
“A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions…which does not restrict content, sites or platforms, and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams”.
Net Neutrality is not a new issue, the term “Net Neutrality” was coined in 2000 and the debate is becoming increasingly fierce…with the telephone and cable companies on one side and almost everyone else on the other.
Traffic Cops
The phone and cable companies believe that they should be able to be the gatekeepers to the Internet. They want to create a tiered system where you could pay more to have your content delivered as a priority or faster or at all.
Continue Reading “Net Neutrality - Why Should We Care?”
Wow, what a time saver! I recently discovered and implemented a great application Folder View. It is a windows only download that once installed adds a toolbar to your windows explorer window. This new toolbar can then be configured to hold any frequently used folder and you can access the folders in the toolbar and that folder’s sub-folder with a single click! (see screen shots below)
New Toolbar with frequently accessed folders
Continue Reading “Save time accessing your files with Folder View”
By: charlene
Posted: June 6, 2008 Topics: Marketing, SEO copywriting, Design, Software, Tech Tools, How-To, Business Tags: AJAX, anchor text backlink tools, design ideas, email attachment remover, site mock ups
Want to work faster, smarter & with style? Check out these 5 articles that reveal some tricks of the trade.
Email Spring Cleaning
If the IT department is constantly asking you to free up space in your Outlook account, you need this tool. Windows users can use the Outlook Attachment remover to detach documents currently attached to emails in your inbox and offload them to your hard drive. Even better, you can specify which document type and sizes.
Attention all SEM (Search Engine Marketing) workers
Want to get an idea of your competitors’ link building strategy, understand what people think of your site and get help with your keyword research? Start exploring the anchor text of backlinks using some free tools.
Must-See Sites
Whether you’re a designer looking to prime the creative pump or a developer searching for little-known functionality tips, this list of top-notch sites, compiled by Noupe, will feed anyone’s web fancy.
Awesome Ajax Apps
If you’re an Ajax developer or you’re looking so learn some cool Ajax techniques, you will definitely appreciate this article. It presents 25 Ajax projects and examples that are sure to impress.
Site Design Just Got Easier
Those of you charged with putting together site mock-ups will love the Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit. This free toolkit includes many of the generic images required to put together your user interface, including standard ad units, UI controls, tabs, buttons, placeholder text and more.
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