Start Over. Google ranking is your friend. Go with your City name/pressure washing or whatever. Kansas City Softwashing. Get a name and domain, then worry about the logo. cleaning, washing, pressure wash, softwash, roof clean or whatever the hell is your main focus.
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Too late. I already have the LLC, federal EIN, business bank account and credit cards, domain, multi million dollar insurance policy, and $60,000+ in sales customer base (year 1 was only 8 months and that amount includes $0 from power washing).
We are an interior (and now exterior) cleaning service located in South Jersey. I’m not a huge fan of the interior cleaning, so I am training a few people to lead “teams” for inside services and I plan to operate the power washing service. We’ll see how things go. If I they can’t handle the responsibility of the interior (and/or I can’t manage them) then I will probably drop the interior services. The plan is to keep both services and expand/grow. Time will tell.
I really appreciate your feedback though Rick. I have you, Will and Brodie (and some others) bookmarked all over my PWRA account. I’ve been thoroughly researching the bookmarks the past few days because I have just started the ordering/building process. Thank you (and everyone else) for all the time and energy you have put into this forum - it is invaluable to a new guy like myself.
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Top one is perfect IMO. Just enough to make it clearer, but still simple and easy to read. Here’s where I would disagree with @Racer on your business name. I love weird (not typical) business names. I think you may start a few conversations and make a handful of folks laugh with your business name. That’s a good first impression.
My favorite business names on the forum are @Evan_Walde’s Blue Bird and Jimmy’s @Monsterpowerwashing. Jimmy and Evan can get away with a slightly more complicated logo because most folks will remember a unique name. Jimmy’s is brilliant because it inspires kids to say, “MOM! DAD! LOOK!”
Check out http://www.thebeardedplumber.com/ his website sucks… but he’s killing it here in Kansas City. I see his trucks EVERYWHERE. Another company called Bob Hamilton Heating & Cooling has the most boring name I’ve ever heard. He uses BRIGHT PINK vans with his face and body on them. Guess what… I see them EVERYWHERE.
The service business is so slammed full of fly-by-night hacks and uninsured goons that show up hours late if they show up at all that a referral from a neighbor or family member is almost sure to close/snowball into other business that my opinion is referrals are WAY more important than a great website. You definitely need a great website for particular customers, but even then your chances of closing business with someone who finds you online are still less than an exuberant referral.
He’s right about the SEO though. Either way you can fill it with SEO meta tags, add your website to forums and blogs like this one, even online profiles. I have a workout app I use to track all my runs/swims/workouts and it lets you fill out a profile and add a website URL. That’s a reference from a well respected site.
BUT… if you can own powerwashPA.com or PAclean.com or something simple and easy it’ll be a huge kickstart. Just redirect it to your other site.
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Redirecting does 0 for SEO. Only thing I have found useful with redirects is if your putting a website on a yard sign, or when I do a billboard campaign in June I’m going to use domains that I’ve already bought that are easy to remember and are redirected. For SEO, it does zero because chances are that domain will never be indexed
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Is there a more affordable way to do your initial branding instead of paying a graphic designer $500 for rights and vector images? Just wondering if there is some software or something that you guys know about or if it would cost about the same to set it up.
If it doesn’t help SEO are there any benefits to having multiple domains? I can see shorter names especially on billboards because people don’t have time to write it down.
Are you better off having a name like “the name of the biggest city nearby pressurewashing.com” ? Will having the city as part as your url really make that big of a difference in where your site ranks? You would think just having pressure washing in the domain name would be enough since google seems to already know where everyone lives. If someone only types “pressure washing” it’s more than likely going to give them local results.
I’m still trying to get a name narrowed down. Every time I think I have it I google it and it’s being used somewhere else.
I’m in the same boat @marinegrunt I can’t think of anything creative that isn’t already being used. My buddy came up with this but I still don’t want to use my name in the business name
I thought about using my name or even my wife and kid’s initials. Everything I’ve read says not to though. They also say not to use names of cities, long names, confusing names such as words or sayings that only you know what they mean. There are so many successful businesses with their name or city name as the business name though. The name is probably a pretty small part of being successful but I’m sure a good name can definitely help. A catchy name will let someone’s curiosity get the best of them at times and they’re going go to your website. It doesn’t mean they’ll need anything pressure washed though.
I like the logo Adam. Brodie @squidskc is really good at branding so I’m sure he will offer some pointers. As far as the logo I’m guessing he’ll say change the red to orange, don’t have the hose behind the numbers, and have your phone number larger than the Adam’s Power Washing. Don’t listen to me though. I’m seriously just guessing and just going by past posts I’ve read.
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Haha close. That’s not a logo necessarily. Your logo should just be a name. Separate the logo from the number. I’d say make it 80% blue, 20% orange or red is fine. Blues and oranges just have a different reaction in people’s mind than red.
@AdamB let’s start at the bottom. I was working with a marketing consultant at my local SBA and she helped me pick my name. It was my least favorite on a list of 20 names. I ran out of options and it made it on the list.
If you want to send me a list of 20 names I’ll look it over and pick out 3-4. Adam’s Power Washing is fine. It’s just kinda meh.
At the end of the day, the name and the logo only help your other marketing materials and help you get remembered and if people know what you do, you show up when you say you’re going to show up, you know how to sell your services, you’re honest with people even when it costs you money, follow up, do more than you say you’re going to do, and generally run a great business your name can be 123 Power Wash. You’ll be fine.
It’s just a lot more likely that someone will remember Dirt Houdini or something silly like that and will mention it to their friends like “isn’t that hysterical?”
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Btw my two favorite names on my first list was BlueGreen EcoClean and Shooter One Pressure Washing with the idea that BlueGreen Eco Clean was going to be fancy and that Shooter One would look cool with a scope retical behind it.
Either of those probably would’ve done just as well as Squid’s Pressure Washing LLC had I done all things the same. But I get a ton of questions about Squids and the story behind it helps it stick.
The only reason I get excited about logos and the colors is that there’s science behind it and if every little thing helps you 1/2% you might find that your marketing is 10% better after all the little things.
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I think I the first one out of the four right before this one. I like this one but I think it could use something like an added color like above.
Now just let Squids Branding Co give you some real advice!
I’m with @marinegrunt I like the first of the four above, but what do I know. I’m working on getting all of my stuff sorted out too.
Many have different opinions on exact keyword domain matches. I think it helps, others (including google) say it actually penalizes you for it. Go on the internet and type in pressure washing service ( whatever city)
A high percentage of times the top 1 or 2 results have the city pressure washing.com as their domain. Now your domain and business name could be different. You see that a lot
There are tons of studies done on colors in relation to marketing. Here are just a few from Google: In website and logo design, it’s something that’s been used for years.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3028378/what-your-logos-color-says-about-your-company-infographic
Now go to my logo and website to see what the colors are trying to convey -
And then the website - http://www.procleanexteriors.com/
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I concur with Brodie. Simple is good. My original concern when I first saw the name of your business was that disorder was the final idea conveyed. However, it seems that you’ve already proven your success with that name, so congratulations!
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I love that. If you can get kids to say to their parents “hey look!” and vise versa I think that’s a winner.
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If the trunk was below the belly it would really get some looks!
I like Racer’s logo and Fatjoe’s. I think they both look great!
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