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      🆔 How to Name your Home

      This article describes how to name your home and what goes into naming your home.

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      Article Table of Contents

      1. Background on Naming Homes
      2. Naming Conventions

      Additional Resources


       

      Background on Naming Homes

      The Basics

      How does VSL work? Our brand name is Vanderburgh Sober Living (or VSL), but your homes will have their own name. You can choose to have a generic name and focus on your home as a Vanderburgh Sober Living home, or you can choose to place more of the emphasis on your unique home name(s). It's up to you!

      Picking a name: Your home name is up to you, with minimal restrictions. You are free to name your home after a location, person, idea, or core value. We may suggest or require modifications, but we don’t do so often. Read more about that below.

      What's the "right" name? In most cases, there is no “right” or “wrong” name for a home. It should be something that is meaningful to you, relevant to what you are trying to do, or memorable. Some examples of home names include:

      • Germain Sober House, named after the street on which the home is located

      • New Hope Community, named after one of the Operator’s core values

      • Matt's Place, named after an Operator’s loved one

      Is my home's name the same as my business or LLC name?  Not at all! At least, it doesn't have to be. What you name your LLC, and what you name your home, can be totally different. Or they can be the same. It doesn't matter at all, and you don't have to file any special paperwork in order to name your home something different than your business.

      Unacceptable names: Here is where one of the few restrictions come into play. To ensure a positive environment, minimize legal risk, and be fair to other operators, we have a few examples of names that we would object to, including but not limited to the list below:

      • Profanity

      • Any statements guaranteeing any type of result

      • Copywritten or otherwise legally disallowed names or content

      • Home names that are the same as, or similar to, other VSL homes

        VSL reserves the right to strongly recommend avoiding a particular name. In rare instances, we may reject a particular name for the reasons mentioned above.

      What if my home name is similar to another close by? In some cases, we will ask you not to name a home similar to another home in the area, even if the other home is not a Vanderburgh House home, to avoid confusion and any copyright claims.

       

      Home Name Building Blocks

      1. Home Name: The name of the home. This is where you can get creative!
      2. Search Term: This is the term that is most used to describe sober living in your community, for example: "Sober House"; "Recovery Residence"; or "Sober Living Home". Go to https://trends.google.com/ and see what search terms are being used in your area. This will be helpful information as we build marketing materials.
      3. Gender Served: It's a good idea to include the gender in longer forms of the name of your home. For example, on a Google page, it makes a lot of sense to put what gender is served by the home.

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      Naming Conventions

      Home names follow a few different formats, but all require the same basic information: Home Name (discussed above); Gender; City. Home names require different formatting depending on the circumstance. Google Business, our website, and other platforms require slightly different formatting for a number of reasons.

      Vanderburgh House Website

      The naming convention for the Vanderburgh Sober Living website is below. This structure is created to optimize search terms to drive traffic to the page from Google or other search engines.

      Preferred: <Name> <Search Term> │ Sober Living for <Gender> in <City, State>

      • e.g. Germain Sober House │ Sober Living for Women in Worcester, Massachusetts

      Optional: <Name> | Sober Living for <Gender> in <City, State>

      • e.g. New Hope Community │ Sober Living for Men in North Providence, Rhode Island
      • You are free to shorten the full name of the state to the two-letter abbreviation if desired.

       

      Google Business & Directory Listing Pages

      The naming convention we recommend for directory listings (Google Business Page, certification listings, etc.) is below. Google Business pages do not have to include the location of the home, but our website page (more information below) does include the location.

      <Name> <Gender> <Search Term>: Vanderburgh Sober Living

      For example, Germain Women’s Sober House: Vanderburgh Sober Living

       

      Sober House Directory

       The naming convention for the Sober House Directory website is as follows:

      <Name> <Gender> <Search Term> │ Vanderburgh Sober Living in <City, State>

      For example, Germain Women’s Sober House │ Vanderburgh Sober Living in Worcester, Massachusetts