Hi Everyone
I'm working on setting up my VA business - focusing my marketing on US or English speakers. Because I'm living in Chile, I'll create the business according to the laws of the land and when I chose my business name, I didn't give it much thought of duplication because it's in English within a spanish speaking nation, BUT I just had the thought that I don't want to have the same name as another VA within the States (or other english speaking countries) even though it won't break any laws here (or that I know of). I tried doing a Google search and, of course, came back with a million hits. I looked at several pages (not all of them) and found one actual company (in construction). So my question is if anyone knows of a better way of searching to see if there's another VA business with the name I want to use? and if anyone has any suggestions regarding this situation?
Thanks for the support!!!

Sandys, welcome to the forum and the VA business world!

If you are getting a million hits in Google, it means that your name is very generic.
You can make your business name unique by adding your own name (first or last) to the one you are trying to use. Or add your specialty to the name. You could also use initials or an abbreviation. Another way to find out is doing a domain name search, although not all businesses have the same domain name as their business.

There are so many options and as long as it's your own, you will most likely not find another VA business with the same name.

Being in Chile puts you in a great position working with clients in both countries and I would love to hear how it's going, so keep us posted.

I hope these tips are helpful. Good luck!

I would try searching for the proposed company name in quotations and then virtual assistant, VA, virtual, etc. - so in the Google search box I would search for

"Proposed Company Name" virtual assistant

etc. Just to double check.
I hope that helps!

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Thanks Girls for the tips - helped a lot!

If you go to godaddy.com (a reputable site where you register your domain name), you can search names without being charged to see if they have already been taken. And, yes, many have!
Good luck. I'm at the same stage.
Good advice about not limiting myself.
Vicky

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Vicky A Stein