Not sure what to name your blog? Try these 5 steps to come up with a great domain name for your blog.
As you’re getting started in setting up your blog, one of the first things you’ll want to think about is your website. If you want a website, you need to have both a domain and hosting set up. In this post, we’ll discuss how to come up with a great domain name for your blog.
In this post, we’ll be going over a bit about why your domain name matters, how to come up with a great domain, and how to secure one once you’ve decided on one that fits your blog and brand.
Why does my domain name matter for my blog?
I like to think about this in terms of a shopping experience – or better yet – a mall experience. When you’re wandering around the mall, you’re judging every store on your first impression. What you see on the outside and what you can barely see from the outside looking in. What you see before you walk in determines whether you will look further into what that store is all about or has to offer.
This experience of looking through the windows is what your domain name is to your blog. It’s what people can see, learn about, and get a first impression about before they even begin to check out what you have to offer inside your website.
Your domain name is your first impression for potential visitors to your blog. Your domain name also provides an opportunity for you to help people remember who you are and what you do. Because of this, you may consider adding exactly what you do into your domain name.
If you do tarot readings, you might want to add “tarot” to the end of your domain name. If you teach knitting, you might want to make sure the words “knit” or “knitting” is somehow incorporated.
When you add these keywords into your domain (or your blog name as a whole), your brand becomes cohesive and memorable. The more you can get people to remember who you are and what you do, the better. This memorability is what keeps people coming back to you to provide answers and solutions to their specific problems.
Finally, having your own domain name matters because it builds trust and authority. People are very quick to pass judgement and one of the quickest ways to ensure that you’re a “legitimate” blog and business is whether you have a solid space online. Plus by simply sending emails from your website, people assume that you’re an authority in the space. Having your own domain is an easy way to build that know, like, and trust factor among your audience.
Now that you know why having a domain name that is specific to your blog is so important, let’s talk about how you can come up with a great domain name for your own blog.
How to come up with a great domain name
When it comes to brainstorming a domain name for your blog, there are a few simple steps to follow, but your creativity will really help you out while you’re going through this exercise.
- Brainstorm as many names as you can think of. Think about what is relevant to what you do and to your actual blog name (and no, your blog name and domain do not have to be the same).
- Do a trademark search on the name. You can easily do this using this trademark search tool.
- Look up domain names on domize.com to see if your top choices are available.
- If not, you can look on sites like leandomainsearch.com to help you discover available domains that use keywords you’re interested in using until you find something that suits your blog.
- Before locking in your domain for good, double check the relevant social media profile availability. You can use a tool like namecheckr.com or knowem.com.
As you’re brainstorming names, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Make sure the domain name ideas you’re coming up with aren’t too long. Short and sweet but to the point is best, because it will be the most memorable.
- Make your domain name easy to spell – if you have a purposely misspelled word in your domain, always be prepared to lose some traffic to those who don’t remember that it’s spelled differently. Things like “Cutting Edge” vs “Kutting Edge” – people get very confused very easily. Make it easy on them and be easy to find.
- Pick something that makes sense with your blog – or don’t. People tend to flock to blogs where it’s obvious what they do in the name, like The Kitchn or Pretty Handy Girl. But the opposite can be true and be a great idea because people remember you, like “Google” or “Bing.” They don’t make sense, but people still flock to them because they’re memorable.
Now that you’ve gone through the steps to brainstorming, checking for trademarks, reviewing all relevant social media profiles and finally decided on a domain name, let’s now talk about how to go about securing your domain name.
How to secure your domain name for your blog
Go to G Suite and sign up for a Basic account for $5/month. Doing this step first will allow you to get custom email setup through your domain without any extra effort.
During the signup process for G Suite, you’ll be given the option to purchase a domain name for $12/year fee. Doing this inside G Suite will allow you to automatically configure your email to work with G Suite.
This means you can get an email like “[email protected]” included in your G Suite $12/year fee and don’t have to do a ton of work getting it all configured. (This is totally optional, but an easy way to setup your domain and email for your blog at the same time).
Alternatively, if you don’t want to use Google to purchase your domain, you can use another service like WP Engine but you’ll have to manually configure email and G Suite separately.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this post – from learning about the importance of a great domain name for your blog, to brainstorming, to securing one that will gain you the trust and authority you’ll need to grow your blog from the ground up.
If you’ve been waiting to get started on building your website because you were intimidated by this process, I promise it couldn’t be easier! Now’s your chance to dive in and make your blog look “legitimate” online.