How to name your company or brand

Lately I´ve been reading a lot about how to name companies and brands.

I´m thinking about opening a jewelry store in Sweden and need a great name. I´ve browsed the web and found a bunch of things to consider when picking a name.

Here are some of the ideas I´ve found useful.

• Get an “umbrella” name. If you are going to sell jewelry, don´t have a name with jewelry in it. What if you want to start selling scarves too? (That means my current name sucks :)) The name should still work if you want to expand.


• Search the web to see if the company name is free as a domain address.


• The name doesn´t have to have a meaning. You can always fill it with meaning with an underline, that you can drop when your name is established. That means nonsense names are OK.


• Short names, and names with hard sounds are remembered more easily. Google, Kodak, Plurk are great examples.


• Make sure your company name is easy to spell.


• Brainstorm to find your name. Start with what you want your name to be associated with. Mix letters and give the words new endings like –ax, -ex, -or, -er, -ac, -oc.
  

Still can´t find a name? Try Breadline Design Naming Machine! :)

Grand re-opening of The Wire Artisans Guild Etsy team store

♥:♥:♥ VALENTINE SPECIAL ♥:♥:♥

HAPPY VALENTINE!!!
My husband surprised me with some hidden gifts. He´s off with the kids skiing, but he had hidden his gifts under my pillow. So sweet of him!!
I´m having a ♥:♥:♥ VALENTINE SPECIAL ♥:♥:♥ in my shop too. Some of my favorites has been put down 50%. So treat yourself!
♥:♥:♥ Love to you all! ♥:♥:♥

Link to my shop: www.suzyqjewelry.etsy.com

IKEA found my photo tent idea

Today I noticed a new site in my "referring sites" statistics at Google Analytics. It´s fun to see which site people visited before mine.
The new site I found that suddenly seemed to direct a lot of traffic to my blog is www.ikeafans.com/ . They´ve written an article about my IKEA photo tent.
It made my day!
Read the article here.

Who links to your website?

I amused myself this morning with searching for sites who link to my Etsy shops and my blog. And I found many interesting sites and news about my business (!!!). So I thought I´d share with you on how to do this in an easy and fast way. Probably most of you know of this simple action, but I just found out.

Just go to Google.com and write "link:" and your url adress without the http thing. Example:
link: www.suzyqjewelry.etsy.com

I found several blogs and social shopping sites where people have recommended my jewelry. It even works with sites where they just wrote your adress without attaching a hyperlink.

So thank you Pandabear 18788 for recommending my SLEEPING BEAUTY and THE GIRL IN ME necklace on This Next. And thank you With this ring I thee obsess and Charming Paper blog for recommending my jewelry for future brides.

I also found out I´m now a proud member of Self-Representing Artist Jewelry Designer (SRAJD member 1797)!!!

Now someone may think you can find this out from Google Analytics or Statcounter. But to actually see sites who link to you there takes that someone clicked on the link. By using this easy Google way you´ll see sites with information about you without clicks.

So what do you make out of the information you get? Not quite sure. But approving your confidece is a result good enough.....:)

Featured in magazine

It´s a strange feeling to see yourself in a magazine. I never get used to it. But it´s fantastic to see your pieces displayed and to have someone writing about your business. This is an article about doing business on Etsy.

Etsy is something new to both sellers and buyers in Sweden. When doing a search I can only find 49 Swedish sellers at Etsy - it should be more! I hope this article will help others to take the step forward against opening their own Etsy business.

I also hope this will make me find more Swedish customers. My customers mostly comes from US, UK and France. It used to be Australia and New Zeeland but for some reason I´ve had no buyers from those countries since spring.

If you have an Etsy shop, where do your customers mostly come from?