How to Conduct a Louisiana Business Search

This is what I’m looking for.

Make sure that you’re searching for a term that is broad enough to encompass all businesses you’d want to find while being narrow enough to rule out unwanted information.

Important naming guidelines in Louisiana

Louisiana has specific business naming requirements, such as Section 1360 of the Louisiana LLC Act. 

Regular LLCs must include “limited liability company,” “L.L.C.,” or “L.C.” in its name. Certain terms (e.g., “engineer,” “banking,” or similar) require specific approval from the appropriate Louisiana state board.

Naming guidelines vary per state, but there is a general set of principles you can follow for best practices. 

The most important thing to remember is distinguishing your name from others. You should conduct a Louisiana entity search to be absolutely sure that your business name is unique and not similar to existing names in state records.

The Louisiana Secretary of State conducts a thorough review of names when you file your business, so it’s best to make sure you’re following the guidelines.

Other naming considerations

Aside from following legal guidelines when naming your business, you also want to make sure it will attract customers. There are generally accepted practices for choosing a business name. Let’s go over a couple of quick actions you can and should take.

Domain name availability 

Your business name should match an appropriate domain for customers to find you easily. It’s one of the first steps of implementing the SEO basics. 

If you have a unique business name, you’ll still sometimes run into cases where people own your domain name. This is sometimes called cybersquatting, where people hold onto a domain name in the hopes that someone will want to buy it in the future.

You can contact the cybersquatter to buy and transfer the domain name or, in some cases, take legal action if they are infringing on a trademark.

Conducting a trademark search

It’s important to avoid trademark infringement. If you’re using another seller’s trademark in your business name, you could get in deep legal trouble. 

There are steps you can take to protect yourself against trademark infringement from other parties. We strongly recommend you use the business entity search to avoid infringing on a pre-existing trademark.