If you are rebranding your business or starting a new brand, there is something you should now consider for your brand positioning.
That is, how do LLMs see your brand?
Below are some examples of large and small one-word brands that do well in LLM results (Google AI Mode, ChatGPT Search) because they are not dictionary terms.
If you are rebranding or starting a new brand, a one-word non-dictionary term (a coined name) will generally serve you best for LLM results.
Real World Brand Examples
One and two-syllable brands are best, but three and four are fine if they roll off the tongue.
- Keap
- Clearspeed
- JumpCloud
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Breakcold
- StackBlitz
- KeySearch
Summarize this post with AI:
The goal is for the LLM search results to prioritize information about your brand (or only display information about your brand), as Google AI Mode did for the following search for the Aurasell brand when it was only two weeks old.
Our two-word parent brand, CRM Switch, which ranks #1 in the traditional search results, is considered more of a ‘phrase’ than a brand in AI Mode:
Of course, there are brands for which being a dictionary term doesn’t matter.
‘Windsurf’ is a dictionary term that shows the watersport in some LLM results, but it did not stop OpenAI from almost acquiring the company for $3 billion.
Risks & Trade-offs
Here are some other considerations.
A fully made-up or coined name may not communicate what your product or service does in the name itself, so you’ll need more branding and messaging to explain your value proposition.
If the coined name is too unusual, people might mispronounce or misspell it, which could hurt word-of-mouth, discovery, and presentation.
For brands that do business internationally, a non-dictionary brand in one language or region may have unintended meanings in others, or might coincide with dictionary words in other languages.
Because AI search is evolving, the way LLMs interpret names may shift over time. Doing well in the results now doesn’t guarantee ongoing alignment.
Before committing to a new B2B brand name, in addition to all the usual checks, run it through the LLMs and see what comes up.
