9 Tips to Picking the Right Domain Name for Your Blog

In point of fact, your domain name is one of the first things your visitors will see, it is the first impression that they will have of you. Therefore, it can also make or break the image of your blog.

Whether you’re looking to start a new blog, or are considering changing the URL of your existing one, you want your domain name to be catchy, memorable and something that your visitors are going to like. Here are some tips to help you pick the right domain name for your blog.

Let me start off by answering the most basic question: what is a domain name and how does it work?

What is domain name?

To put it in plain words, a domain name is the address of a website or blog that visitors are going to type into their browsers in order to access it.

A domain name consists of two parts: the main part and the extension. The main part of a domain name can consist of letters, numbers and dashes. On the other hand, the extension is the part after the dot (.). If you take “yourdomain.com” as an example, “yourdomain” would be the main part and .com, the extension.

There are so many different types of domain extensions like .info, .com, .org, .gov and so on.

. info stands for informational sites, .org stands for organizations, .com stands for commercial sites. But at the present time, .com is the most popular extension and most commercial, informational or other types of sites use it.

Now I’ll get to the point and list out some tips on picking a domain name for your blog.

1. Pick a name that reflects your blog topic

Make sure to come up with a name that reflects perfectly what your blog is about, don’t go too specific or too broad.

Assume you’re building a blog in the relationship niche giving tips on “marriage”, “dating”, “getting your ex back” and many other relationship topics. In such a case, a name like getyourexback.com might give an impression that your site only talks about “getting exes back”.

2. Go for the “Dot com” extension

When people hear the word “website”, what comes to their minds is “Websitename.COM”. Dot com is the most popular extension. Unless you’re building a blog for a non-profit organization or a local company in the UK, for example, always go for the “dot com” extension.

But with that said, if you prefer other extensions such as say “dot net” or “dot me” for some reasons, you can register the “dot com” extension as well and redirect it to your blog so as not to lose the potential type-in traffic.

3. Go for the shortest alternative

Long URLs are generally not the easy ones to remember. Not only that, but you also don’t want to miss out on type-in traffic, or visitors coming to your site by typing your URL directly into their address bar.

Don’t go overboard and stress yourself out trying to find a dictionary or one-word domain though, since most are already taken anyway. Usually, a combination of two to three words is fine. Aside from that, also avoid jargons and other words that are hard to spell.

4. Avoid dashes and numbers

Dashes might make your domain name easy-to-read but at the same time, people tend to forget them when typing in your URL. And numbers don’t give professional impressions. Therefore, unless they make sense or are relevant for your brand or industry, try not to use numbers in your domain name.

5. Think outside of keywords or industry-related terms

When it comes to picking a domain name for your blog, the best practice used to be to pick a frequently used term in your industry, or a combination of them, to use as your name. Now, with gazillions of websites out there, most of those kinds of domain names are already taken.

Be creative and come up with catchy words for your domain name. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a keyword or a word related to your industry. Car sites like carthrottle.com and coolcarsandgirls.com come to mind.

6. Don’t stuff keywords

Keyword-rich domain names are pretty much a thing of the past. They usually don’t look professional and search engines no longer like them too.

Fact is, if you’re building a website targeting a very narrow or specific topic, using a keyword or two might help. But don’t overdo it. You don’t want to end up with a URL so boring people will doze off typing it, like “howtogetyourexbackfastandeasily.info”.

7. Be careful of copyrights and trademarks

Some people unknowingly use celebrity names or popular brand names on their domain names. That however is not a good idea since those types of names are most likely already trademarked.

However sometimes, just because a term is not popular doesn’t mean it hasn’t already been trademarked. You don’t want to get yourself into hot water, do you? Use sites such as WIPO when picking a domain name to help you check whether or not a specific term has already been trademarked.

8. Use domain name research tools

Tools such as Dot-o-mator and Domainr can help you find a relevant and catchy name by combining most used words in your industry or niche topic.

9. Go with reputable registrants to register your domain name

Namecheap, Godaddy and Name.com are some of the top domain registrants you can register your domain names with.

There are some domain registrants that don’t provide a service that is fast and reliable. There are also some registrants that are disreputable or outright shady, they can charge you hidden fees and do so many other unnecessary stuff. Those are domain companies you should avoid at all costs.

As the saying goes, “the first impression is the lasting impression”. So take the time and think twice before hitting the register button. Good luck!

What’s Your Feedback?

Please provide some tips that comes to your mind which I may have missed mentioning here by using the comments box below.