-Create a Business Plan:  Take the time to write out a business plan that includes a clear direction you want your cleaning business to go.  Will you be a small business, or do you want to grow to a large company?  Do you want a full time or part time cleaning business?  Will you focus on residential, commercial, vacation rentals, or something else?

-Choose a Business Structure:  Sole-proprietorships and Partnerships often are not considered legal entities, and may have less restrictions on name registration.   LLC’s and Corporations are more complex, and will cost more to set up.  If you are planning to clean by yourself, a sole-proprietorship should be sufficient.

-You May Use Your Own Name:  Do you want your own name in the business name?  “Mary’s Home Cleaning Service”  “Walsh Cleaning Services”.  Using your own name adds a personal touch that may appeal to customers.  If you use your full name (“Mary Walsh House Cleaning”), you will have less legal restrictions.  If just part of your name is used (“Walsh’s Commercial Cleaning”) you may still have to file a fictitious name and/or a DBA (doing business as).

-Use a Simple Name With A Catchy Slogan:  You may also choose a simpler business name and focus on a catchy slogan that will define your business.  “Philly’s Cleaning Pro” or some other phrase can be a tagline associated with your business.  While “Walsh Residential Cleaning Service” may not sound too fancy, a tagline associated with your business name can give you a big boost.  You can see how having “Walsh Residential Cleaning Service– Philly’s Cleaning Pro” on your business card or advertisement may have a greater effect than just “Walsh Residential Cleaning Service”.

-Choose a name near the front of the alphabet:  An old-school technique for deciding on a business name would be to choose a name that would show up alphabetically near the front of the traditional phonebook.  Examples for this would be “A+ Maid Service” or “Affordable House Cleaning”.  This technique may not be as beneficial as it used to be with the innovations of modern marketing strategies utilizing social media and search engines such as Google.

-Choose a name that easy to remember:  Using a short, simple name may be more helpful for customers to remember than a long, difficult-to-spell name.

-Don’t pick any business name, thinking you can just change it later on: Obviously, you could change your name at some point down the road, but it may hurt your business.  You could lose previous customers and miss out on referrals.    You will need to changing all marketing materials, your website, and branding to reflect your new name.  This will take time and cost money.  Not all businesses automatically fail  because they decided to change their name, but that possibility should definitely be something you should consider now, rather than later.

-Make sure your business name is legal: After choosing your name, you will need to register with various government agencies.  You will need to see if the name you are choosing is trademarked, or used by someone else in the area.  You may even need to register your business name at the local level such as with your city..

-Choose a good website address to complement your business name:   When choosing a business name, don’t forget to choose a name for your web address.  While it would be ideal to have your business name as the actual web address (ex. WalshCommercialCleaning.com), it isn’t necessarily crucial.  Other options could be “WalshResidentialCleaning.com”, or some other variation not even including your name such as “DenverMaidService.com”.  You could even choose a web address that reflects your tagline such as “YourHouseCleaningSpecialist.com”.  The key with choosing a website name is to keep it easy to remember and easy to spell.   If your website is set up properly, customers will have no problem finding you, no matter what the web address is.   Before you get excited on your website name, make sure it is not already in use.  You don’t want to plan your marketing materials only to find the web address you wanted is being used by some other company half way across the country.