How to Choose The Right Blog Domain Name

If you want to create a successful blog, you must choose the right domain.

The name of your website is like a business card, the first information that users register in their mind and probably the first thing they will remember.

This is why it is fundamental to study in depth what is the best choice in your case, considering all the alternatives available.

So, if you want to choose the right domain name, I suggest you read this list very carefully.

1. Make It Memorable

The first rule is choosing an easy to remember name. Something that will be imprinted in the heads of your audience.

What does it mean? You should find a name that remains in your user minds with extreme ease. Put yourself in their shoes. Think of something short, catchy, simple to write or pronounce.

This also makes word of mouth a lot easier: a memorable domain is a name that people will mention with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

2. Consider Blending

Blending is a linguistic artifice to merge two or more words. These are popular examples: infographic, or gifographic.

There are several ways to form a blend. You can:

• melt the beginning and end of two words (e.g. brunch, from breakfast and lunch);
• merge the beginning of two words (e.g. cyborg, from cybernetic and organism);
• merge two words based on a concordance (e.g. Californication, from California and fornication).

Blending is an interesting expedient to creating a good domain name. It makes the idea and manages to synthesize different concepts.

It also has another advantage: it’s special, it’s creative, it’s yours. The blending is the result of an idea that nobody can steal. Or rather, they can steal it. But you will always be the original!

3. Check Availability

It’s always the best choice to register a domain name that is not taken.

However, it often happens you want a domain that in reality does not have a live website, but it is not available because already purchased by another person or service (these people usually register domains, to then resell them).

Take the following case, for example. I want to get saavybloggingtips.com and I run a domain search. Here’s the sceenshot of the result:

In this case, there are two possibilities. Contact the owner of the domain name and try to contract the purchase of the website.

Or, look for the availability of the domain name with a different extension, for example .co or .net, or .org.

4. Keyword Brainstorming

When you are searching for your blog name, think about some words or phrases that are related to the domain you are looking for.

After having completed the list, you can begin matching the words or add prefixes and suffixes to produce interesting ideas for your domain name.

If you are launching a domain for a site about business, some good keywords can be money, employement, career, income, work, etc.

5. New Generic Extensions (New gTLD)

The arrival of the new gTLD represents a revolution in the web, new possibilities for personalizing your blog URL.

From the 22 previous extensions, there are now over 700 new extensions available for your domain name.

The new gTLDs give you the chance to find a good free name, which is very difficult in recent years with classic extensions.

Given the growing success, you may consider choosing any of these extensions, if the standard one is not available (.com and .net). Try, for example: .audio, .auction, .best, .blog, .cheap, .football, .financial, .games etc ..

6. Avoid Numbers, Hyphens, and Plural

Think about your personal experience: when you search on the internet, do you ever type hyphens? The punctuation is inconvenient and difficult to store for users.

In addition, if you use it to differentiate your site from your competitor (who has just taken the domain you wanted), you risk that users will end up on the wrong site.

Even the numbers or plural names can share the same considerations. Plus, they easily deceive.

Especially if, just like the hyphens, they are the only element that differentiate your site from the competition.

Remember: less is better. The more users lives are simplified, the more you reduce the percentage of errors.

7. An Eye on Social Media

Social networks have become fundamental in the promotion of any type website.

For this reason, before the domain registration, consider checking that the chosen domain is also free on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

In this way, it will be possible to create an official page (or business profile) and leverage the power of social media marketing.

Of course, if your domain name is occupied on the social networks, you should make an extra effort and try to modify it (without, however, changing it too much).

Conclusion

Your domain is your online home.

Like in real estate, location matters.

If you have a domain name that clearly states to users and search engines who you are and what you do, this will surely help to establish your brand on the Internet.

Don’t just randomly choose a domain. Invest some time and pick the right domain name for your blog (and business).

So, what do you think of these tips?

Did you adopt different techniques to choose your domain name?

Do you have different tips?

Please share your views and experience in the comments below, thanks!