1. Look up a business name in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) Business Name
ASIC maintains a list of all current company names in Australia. They will only approve new company name registrations that are not currently in use or are too similar to the name of another firm. You may use their Check Business Name Availability tool to check the register. Simply select “Check Business Name Availability” from the drop-down option within the search box, then enter in the name you want to use. You will then be shown a list of business names that match or are similar to yours. If nothing too near pops up, you’re good to go!
ASIC maintains a list of all current company names in Australia. They will only approve new company name registrations that are not currently in use or are too similar to the name of another firm. You may use their Check Business Name Availability tool to check the register. Simply select “Check Business Name Availability” from the drop-down option within the search box, then enter in the name you want to use. You will then be shown a list of business names that match or are similar to yours. If nothing too near pops up, you’re good to go!
2. Verify Domain Availability
If your selected business name has passed the ASIC Business Name Register verification, the next step is to see if the corresponding domain name is accessible. You may simply verify whether a domain is accessible by looking for it using Casbay’s domain registration service.
We highly advise all Australian businesses to register their principal domain as a.com.au domain. You must supply one form of eligibility to register a.com.au domain. This usually entails owning a legally registered name with the same or similar spelling. This criteria ensures that Australian firms may nearly always register their preferred domain name. If the.com version of your domain is available, we would also recommend registering it. The.com domain can then be configured to redirect to the.com.au domain name. The major reason for this is to secure your brand and prevent others from utilizing it.
Don’t worry if the.com version of the domain is already taken! In most cases, the.com.au suffix is sufficient, as most Australian customers are accustomed to putting in.com.au and will not be confused if the.com redirects them to a different firm. You may also check in on a regular basis to see whether the.com version of your domain becomes available, but for most Australian businesses, having this version is more of a ‘desire’ than a ‘need’.
3. Examine the availability of usernames on social media platforms
If you want to use social media as part of your new business’s marketing plan (which you should), you should double-check that your preferred username is not already in use, or locate something similar that is accessible to use. It’s also a good idea to perform a fast search for profiles with similar titles or spellings – just to make sure such profiles don’t link to undesired profiles like competitor companies or inflammatory content.
At the time of writing, the most popular social media platforms in the Australian market were Instagram and Facebook.
Finally, depending on the type of your firm, LinkedIn may be a useful venue for creating a business profile. We would most strongly suggest it for business industries such as banking, business services, and B2B firms.
