3 Ingredients for a Psychologically Powerful Domain Name/Business Name
When you first heard the product name “Viagra” then what came to your mind? If you are like most then the name brought to mind images of strength and life and maybe even a flowing waterfall because of its close association with the familiar name “Niagara” as in “Niagara Falls”. Now what comes to mind when you hear the product name “1-[[3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-7-oxo-3-propyl-1Hpyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-5-yl)-4-ethoxyphenyl]sulfonyl]-4-methylpiperazine citrate”? Does this product name sound like something safe? Not likely, as it brings to mind some sort of lethal combination of chemicals that one should never want to ingest. Here’s the catch: both of those names describe exactly the same thing. “1-[[3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-7-oxo-3-propyl-1Hpyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-5-yl)-4-ethoxyphenyl]sulfonyl]-4-methylpiperazine citrate” is just the official name for what we all now know as “Viagra”.
Jason Zweig of the WSJ has a great article titled Wall Street’s Use of Acronyms that while primarily discussing the reasoning behind some of the popular naming conventions for many financial products also mentions some studies that seem to suggest the 3 ingredients that are necessary for a psychologically powerful product name, business name, or domain name. Now of course there are many other things to consider when choosing a domain name but I thought that approaching the domain name selection process from a psychological perspective was an intriguing one so here are the 3 ingredients along with some data points to support them:
1. Easy to perceive
2. Easy to pronounce
3. Easy to remember
Two interesting studies mentioned:
A) “In a classic psychological experiment, people were shown a series of fictitious names of food additives, all with 12 letters. Some, like Magnalroxate, were fairly easy to pronounce; others, like Hnegripitrom, were a cumbersome mouthful. Asked to imagine that they were reading the names as ingredients on food labels, people rated how safe each additive was likely to be. The unpronounceable additives were, on average, rated 29% riskier.”
B) “The psychologists also presented people with the names of amusement-park rides. Some were short, catchy and pronounceable, like Chunta. Other names were hard for most people to say, like Vaiveahtoishi. With no information about the rides other than their names, people rated the unpronounceable rides an average of 44% riskier and more likely to make them sick.”
In a nutshell, the conclusion that Zweig makes is that “So the easier something is to perceive, remember or pronounce, the safer it will make us feel—regardless of its actual risk or benefit”. It is certainly easy to see how we can translate some of the information gleaned from this study into our domain name selection process.
What other psychological elements do you think are involved with coming up with a great domain name?
(I really can’t believe I just put the word “Viagra” into one of our blogs posts which I’m sure tripped all kinds of Google spam filters but oh well 
)
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When starting a new business there are a number of items, which the online entrepreneur must consider before they can actually start trading, one of these is the Domain Name selection.