How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Blog

For many people, choosing a domain name for their blog is one of the most difficult parts of getting started. But it doesn’t have to be. While there are some good reasons to try to get the “perfect” domain name, the bottom line is that many people blog very successfully under less than perfect names.

What is a domain name? Essentially, it is the name of your website and what you enter in your browser to get to a website. It is an alphanumeric representation of your IP address – your address on the Internet. For this website, LindaStacy.com is the domain name.

If you already have a website to which you’re adding a blog, you can put the blog in a subdirectory and name it whatever you like. For example, YourSite.com/blog or YourSite.com/tips. If your website domain name is not descriptive of your business, you could make the subdirectory more descriptive. For example, YourSite.com/candles or YourSite.com/candle-tips.

If you are looking for a new domain name for your blog there are several considerations.

While you may want to choose a domain name that is descriptive of your blog and contains your primary keyword phrase, I think it’s most important to keep your visitors in mind, as well as your goals and plans for your blog.

Choose a domain name that is easy to say, easy to spell, and easy to remember. You may have heard reference to the “Oprah test” when choosing a domain name. Picture yourself being introduced by Oprah (or anyone else) and having her say your domain name. You don’t want people wondering what she said or how to spell it. For example, say the domain name JustForWomen.com out loud. How will someone know whether it’s for, four or 4 in the middle? And what if a potential client types in Just4Women.com and finds someone else’s website there?

Having a keyword rich domain name can help you achieve better ranking in the search engines, but again, don’t sacrifice your visitors’ experience to include your keywords. You might want ErgonomicallyDesignedComputerDesks.com, but it’s a lot to say, pronounce, spell and remember. Instead, choose something easier to remember and use other methods to optimize those keywords.

Ideally, your domain name should be no more than 22 characters, and the shorter the better. I recommend against using hyphens, again because it’s too hard to say the hyphens when giving out your domain name. In addition to avoiding numbers try to stay away from homonyms – is it their or there, too or to, see or sea? And when using multiple words, carefully consider whether it’s clear what the words are. Does childrenswear.com sell clothes or help break a child’s bad habit?

It’s best to stick with the .com extension unless you have a specific reason for using one of the others (such as .org for a non-profit). Websites ending with any other extensions other than a .com may not seem as credible to potential customers and clients simply because the .com extension is considered to the be standard. Additionally, most people automatically use the “.com” when typing in a domain name either on the web or in email so you may lose some customers that way.

Then there’s the question of whether or not to use your own name as your domain name. I chose to do so for this site for a couple of reasons. One is that I’ve been active online for a good number of years under my own name and I use my name on social media sites and forums. Since I’m known online people may be searching for me by name and I’ll be more visible with this domain name. I also plan on blogging about several different topics, but wanted some separation without having to buy a domain name and set up a different website for each topic. Of course an alternative would be to use a generic domain name, however another reason I used LindaStacy.com is because had been in existence for some time and already had Google ranking.

The big disadvantage to using your own name as your domain name is that it will be difficult to sell the site in the future should I want to. Who else will want to own and run a website called LindaStacy.com?

A keyword tool like Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool, along with a thesaurus can help you find a suitable domain name. There are also domain name suggestion tools such as DomainsBot.com that may be useful.

Using these tips and a little creativity you should be able to find a great domain name. There’s no need to get overly obsessed with finding the perfect one. A less than perfect domain name doesn’t spell failure, however it is definitely worth the effort to find the right domain name.

Once you have chosen it, you are ready to Register Your Domain Name.

Already have your domain name picked out and already know how to register it? Get a discount at Namecheap using coupon code DOMAICA (For a limited time during May, 2012; check back next month for the new code).

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You might also like these posts:

• How to Set Up Your Domain Nameservers
• How to Register a Domain Name for Your Blog

One Response to “How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Blog”

1. Andrew Clarke from VA Loan Austin says:

   Sep 7, 2011 at 5:35 am

   Thanks for sharing. I’m planning to create my own blog and i was confused if i should use my name or use the keyword in my niche. I might go with my name. I like to be known in the internet world and i’m really serious about this. Thank you once again.

   Reply