How To Name Your Services
Clever service names create a translation step between you and the buyer. Plain names get chosen. This is one place where boring wins.
Somewhere in the growth of most businesses, someone decides the services need better names.
The consultancy becomes "The Clarity Sprint." The maintenance package becomes "Peace of Mind Plus." And conversion drops, because the buyer now has to work out what they are looking at.
The cost of a clever name
A buyer scanning your site is doing one thing: matching what they need against what you offer.
A plain name completes that match instantly. A clever name inserts a step, and every step loses people.
It also breaks search. Nobody types "The Clarity Sprint" into Google. They type the plain description of the problem, and that is the phrase your page needs to contain.
Name for the outcome or the category, not the process
Three ways to name a service, in order of usefulness.
The category the buyer already knows. "Structural engineering." "Bookkeeping." "Bathroom renovation." Instantly understood, and it is what people search.
The outcome. "Get the DA approved." "Ready to let in five days." Slightly more work to read, more persuasive when the category is crowded.
Your internal process. "The Foundation Phase." Meaningless to a buyer, because it describes how you work rather than what they get.
Most bad names are the third kind, chosen because they describe something real inside the business.
Where a proprietary name is worth it
There is one situation where naming something of your own is worth the translation cost: when you genuinely do something differently, and the difference needs a handle so people can refer to it.
Even then, the name follows a plain description rather than replacing it. Explain what it is in ordinary words, then name it so the reader has something to remember.
The test is whether it survives being said out loud in a meeting the buyer runs without you.
Tiers should be named for who they are for
"Bronze, Silver, Gold" tells a buyer nothing except that one costs more.
"Starter, Growth, Enterprise" is slightly better because it hints at scale.
Best is naming the situation. A buyer choosing between tiers described by their own circumstances is deciding. A buyer choosing between metals is guessing.
Our own tiers are named for what they do rather than for their size, and the reason is that a prospect should be able to identify their tier without asking.
Say what is in it, in the buyer's words
The name gets them to look. The description gets them to choose.
List what is actually included, using the words they would use, not internal terminology. If your list includes an acronym or a phrase only your team uses, it is costing you.
The consistency problem
Whatever you call it, call it that everywhere. The website, the proposal, the invoice, the email, the conversation.
Businesses that rename things internally without updating the client-facing material create a situation where a buyer cannot match the proposal to the page they read. That is a small confusion with a real cost at the point of decision.
The test
Show your service names to someone outside your industry and ask what each one is.
If they cannot tell you, rename it. Every second they spend working it out is a second they are not spending deciding to buy.
David Eid
Marketing Strategist · Founder of Ignis
Marketing strategist based in Sydney, Australia. Founder of Ignis - premium marketing that scales businesses. Our average client generates $3M+/year and 1M+ views/month.
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