Coming up with the name of your blog is a big decision, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Once you decide and buy the domain, that’s it. While you can change it if you need to, it can require a lot of work, especially if the blog has been around for a while. So before you start, you want to spend the time to come up with something that checks off all of your boxes and is a name you’ll be happy with for years to come.
The Domain Name Needs to Be Available
Before we talk about anything else, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. A lot of good domain names are taken. Even if you come up with what you think would be the best domain name, it might be unavailable. So before you get attached to a name, check to see that it’s available. Understand that you might have to come up with quite a few options before you find one that is available.
Does your blog name have to be the same as the domain name? No, it doesn’t, but if it isn’t you might have a hard time getting people to remember the domain name. And if they can’t remember how to get to the blog, it doesn’t matter how great it is, people won’t be able to read and follow it.
It Needs to be Memorable
You need people to remember the name. If they don’t know the name of your blog, they can’t tell other people about it. And if they can’t recommend it to others, you’ll have a lot harder of a time getting traffic to it. Also, if they can’t remember the name, they won’t be able to visit it again themselves!
What can Make it Memorable
Of course you won’t want to use all of these, but going through this list might help you come up with some ideas of a memorable name for your blog.
It should be short. The longer your blog name, the more chances are that someone could forget or misspell it. The shorter and catchier it is, the better and more likely it will be remembered.
It should be relevant to your topic. It will be easier to remember if it’s associated with the topic. If your blog is going to be about treadmills, maybe it should have the word treadmill in the title…or at least something about exercise.
It should be relevant to your audience. It should speak your audience’s language. If your blog is mostly for senior citizens, you might not want to go with a cute word that millennials are using, as your audience just won’t know it or remember it.
It should be unique. You want the name of your blog to stand out in other people’s minds so that they’ll remember it. If it’s almost the same as someone else’s, or the only difference is a small word, they won’t remember it and worse, might go to the other person’s site instead.
It should be linked to your brand. If you are already known for something, you should try to use that as people already know you that way. That can be by your name, brand, or whatever else people already think about when they think of you.
You Need to Be Careful of Certain Words
You need to say the name of your blog out loud, and make sure that it can’t be mistaken for something else. If you have the word two in your blog name, is it “two”, “to”, “too”, or “2”? That would be way too confusing for someone. You should probably stay away from numbers in general too since as you can see people won’t know whether to use the number or spell it out.
While we’re talking about being careful about certain words, make sure you don’t use brand names or other trademarked names. These companies can (and usually will) go after you and get you to take down the domain. So if you want to write about a brand or trademarked word, make sure the domain and blog name is more generic.
It Needs to Have the Right TLD
TLD stands for Top Level Domain, and these days your blog can have quite the choice of them. There are the obvious ones such as .com, .org, and .net, but there are also many, many others. Some others are .info, .me, .health, .art, .tech, .shop, .name, and hundreds of others.
Which should you go with? Unless somehow using a different TLD makes the blog very memorable, you’re much better off going with a .com. Almost 50% of websites in the world use .com as the TLD, and most people assume that any website will have a .com address and will type that in anyway.
It Shouldn’t be Too Specific
If your blog name is too specific, you’re really narrowing down what you can talk about. You don’t want to be too vague either, but if you’re too specific you may run out of ideas. Even if you don’t, you may decide one day that you wish you could talk about a broader range of subjects, and this may then be difficult.
Brainstorming a Memorable Blog Name
It won’t be easy, but it’s worth taking time to create the best blog name you can. Start by creating a large list of ideas. You can use random name generators, look at other blogs in your niche, or even consult the thesaurus to get more ideas. Afterwards, run them by friends and family to see what they think. Slowly narrow down your list until you’re really happy with your name. Then you’re finally ready to start blogging!
Enjoy,
