Deciding on a Domain Name for Your Blog
ByA long time ago, way back a decade or so ago, deciding on a domain name was actually fairly easy. At that time most people couldn’t have told you what the Internet was or how to access it. Those are the good old days.
Today, everyone is plugged in, wired, wireless, or just part computer. You can take your computer and the interenet anywhere and everywhere. This mass intergration of the interenet into every aspect of our lives has also created an explosion of websites. Domain names, good ones, can be hard to come by these days. If you can think of it, someone else already did and registered the domain name already.
So what do you do? How do you find a domain name that will work for the website you want to build?
Keywords are everything these days or so it seems. A lot of SEO professionals will tell you to flood your website in various ways with the keywords you want to rank high in and are relevant to your blog or website. You will also find the same advice in picking a domain name. For example, if you wanted to rank high for the keyword “money” you would therefore pick a domain name which had that keyword.I have put a few examples below minus the www. and .com at the end and I will get to those.
- moneyblogging
- makingmoneyblogging
- moneyfornothing
- moneyforyou
Now while all of these possible domain names have the keyword you want to rank high in, do they really stand out? If you saw these domain names are they going to stick in your brain? The answer… NO! They are really just generic domain names which doesn’t stick with a person. If they don’t stick in your mind, it is going to be the same with your readers and people who see the domain name for the first time. If they don’t remember it they won’t come to the website, pretty much common sense.
Take a look out on the web, what are the websites you visit daily. Which websites stick out the most to you? If you look closely you will see that most of the very popular websites don’t use keywords in the domain name. Some domain names are so off topic for the website you wouldn’t know what the website was even about unless you visited. The reason these names stay with you is that they are not generic and the website picked a domain name which provides a “brand” name.
Building a website is like building a product and a business. Branding your product or business is a major marketing goal. You build up your name and people will remember you. M&Ms candy is a good example, they have done major brand marketing and now the M&Ms characters are more well know than Mickey Mouse. M&Ms are so well known now that the advertisments just need a scene with the characters, they don’t even have to mention the product.
Picking you domain name is the first start in branding your website. Keywords are great for SEO and search engines but they don’t click on ads or sign up for affiliate programs. Your website needs human traffic without it you are nothing on the net.
So lets pick a domain name for your website. Once you decide what the website is about, kind of a must before you pick a domain name. Grab a pen and paper than walk into the other room and sit down. On this paper you are going to create a list of possible domain names. This is an exercise in brain storming. Write down all the words you can associate with your topic.Now write down another list of silly words, words that are either real words that have nothing to do with your website and you can even combine words to make a new word.
You should have two lists now. Taking those two list and write down fifty domain names that “to you” sound like a good brand for your website. You don’t have to struggle with this, just think of them and write them down. Don’t worry if they don’t make sense. When you are finished go put the list up in a safe place for a couple of days.
Once a couple of days have passed go look at your list. Read each domain name out loud, read the list several times and don’t skip any of the names. Put the list up and wait until the next day.
Now before you go get the list, sit down with a pen and paper, write down all the domain names you can remember on your list. Your list will contain names that have stuck with you. At this point you have a good possible list of domain names for your website.
Take your list to the computer and go to the domain register you use and try the domain names to see which ones are not taken. Put a line through any domain name already registered. You should have a smaller list now. At this point it is just a matter of deciding which name you like best. This domain name will become your brand.
If the domain name gives no hint as to what your website is about, don’t worry. It will be your marketing job to make that name known for the product or website you are building. If you have any doubt, take a look at the well known brands for products you use everyday. For example, if I was to say words like: Lipton, Little Debbie, Hot Pockets, Google, Squidoo, Digg, Kraft, Wish Bone…. If you lived a decade before those brands hit the market you would of had no clue what the product was about. Google? What is a Google? Google is now a household word. If you don’t know what Google is by now, you must live in a cave.
Once you pick your domain name for the website, take a look at other names you have on your list. All these names are open to register. Even if you don’t have current plans to make more than one website, register EVERY domain name you like the sound of. Those who wait in domain names LOSE. I have lost domain names before by waiting a week or a month before I decided to register it. I now keep one credit card by the computer to register domain names on a whim. Once I register it I sit back and let it age. The longer the domain name is around the more the search engines will be comfortable with you.
Now I said I was going to say something about the .com part of the domain name. The .com part of a domain name is what 99% of the people on the planet know by heart. If you can’t register the .com for your domain name pick something else. Yes, you can build a great website with .net or .org but if people know the brand they will assume it is .com at the end and you can miss out on a lot of traffic.
Do you have a good way of picking domain names? Let us hear about it!