What's the difference between products and brands? A product may be anything that has the ability to meet customer needs whereas branding is the process in which companies distinguish their product offerings from competition.
The benefits of brands:
Company value, because the financial value of companies can be greatly enhanced by the possession of strong brands.
Consumer preference and loyalty: strong brand names can surely have positive effects on consumer perceptions and preferences. If we consider fan boys, like the Apple fan boys, who purchase nothing but what comes from Apple (Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.). Most of the time, their choice depends more on the brand than on the actual devices quality.
Barrier to competition: the impact of the strong, positive perceptions held by consumers about top brands means it's difficult for new brands to compete. For example, Google has become notorious as the best search engine on the Internet. Even if a competitor like DuckDuckGo, Microsoft Bing or Yahoo (or you) come up with better algorithms, most of the online users would probably still use Google, as they got the Google brand on their mind.
High profits: Strong, marketing-leading brands are rarely the cheapest (Here again, think different, I mean, think Apple).
A good brand name should evoke positive associations and be easy to pronounce and remember (Yahoo, Bing, Color...). Also, it should not infringe an existing brand name and it should be distinctive (Google, Nintendo...).
Another piece of advice about internet branding, make sure the ".com" is gettable (as in www.yourbrand.com). When I say gettable, I mean that it's either available for you to get it first, or someone else owns it and is ready to sell it to you for a reasonable price.