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After I have decided my blogging platform, I started thinking about my domain name.
What would be my domain name?
Why would I want my own domain name?
These are only two questions I asked about domain name but there are other questions that could directly affect my choices of a domain name. Whether I will decide to have my site running as hosted site or non-hosted site, it is very important that I consider the abovementioned questions.
Have you ever wonder the process of naming a newborn child? Or perhaps, a new business? Parents like myself have a great and equally difficult time choosing a name for a newborn. The name will stick with the child in his/her lifetime. For a business, it will be its brand name.
As I browsed the Internet in my quest for ways of making money online, I came across so many important factors that bloggers implicitly and explicitly mentioned in their successful blogs. Here are some factors:
Site's Purposes and Goals
I discerned that all great blog names have something related to their goals. The domain name always commensurate to the long-term vision of the site. I will not be repeating here questions on how I brainstormed the goals and objectives of my site. But, those questions are great to consider if you are deciding for your own domain. I always go back to the strategic goals.
The Niche
Sites within a certain niche oftentimes carry names related to the niche like engadget.com, sitesell.com and hometips.com to name some.
Keywords
In relation to the niche, some successful sites usually incorporated keywords in their domain names like problogger.com (Professionals and Bloggers), AssociatePrograms.com (Associates and Programs), sitesell.com (Site and sell), hometips.com (home and tips), etc.
Domain Names anchored on keywords have some advantages. From the site’s name, readers could already infer what are its contents. It could also help the site gain Search Engine ranking. However, I found out that they shun away from putting too many keywords with the often-abused hyphen symbol.
Branding
Mostly of the successful sites that I visited have their domain names as their brand names. So, it is very important also to consider your future (go back again to your goals) when you decided to use your site’s name as your branded product. Of course, you have to remember that brand names usually are sticky names. Good brand names usually stick into readers/consumers memory. In short, it is memorable and simple. People are so busy today that they sometimes can’t remember long and complicated names.
Traffic
Most sites talking about choosing a domain name leave out considering the traffic or the readers. I found this incorporated only in few sites and among them is a prominent site, Problogger. Of course, the first thing that came into my mind was that whatever name a site have, after considering mostly the factors that I am mentioning now here, it generated traffic.
However, if we could incorporate this factor in our brainstorming for a domain name, we could come up with a better name. Let’s take for an example a loyal reader typing your site name directly at the address bar. If this loyal reader mistakenly typed your site name without “s”, say, “AssociatesProgram.com, then it will land to that site instead of landing to “AssociatePrograms.com” or say, “moneywork-home’ in lieu of “moneyworkhome”
Name Length
Short names are commonly easier to remember and of course, easier to type. Actually, it is okay for you to have a maximum of 67 characters for a domain name but the shorter the better because of the same reasons I mentioned above. However, if you go for a shorter name, try to be unique.
Uniqueness
Unique names could give you some edges against your competitors. For me, I don’t want that I will be the 100,000th person using that the same name. A unique name is very easy to remember. It is far better if this name could leave an imprint to the memory or picture/image related like this unusually unique name “ForkintheHead”.
Think of the Future
Actually, most established sites adviced to limit the niche of a site if a blogger wanted to establish himself/herself to that niche. A limited sub-niche is good for site contents but a limited domain name could be dangerous. Try to avoid name that is time-bound or geographically bound or content bound. We could not afford to have a domain name that is passé or limited geographically since Internet has no boundaries. We could not afford also to limit the name to “bloggingtips.com” because sooner or later, we will be dealing to some topics that are not confined to blogging only.
Legality
It is good to ride to a name already established. However, we could not afford to be legally liable from legal complications. Try to think of a name that nobody could sue you of using it. Trademarked name is a no-no.
Seek Opinions from Others
It is better to seek opinions from others. They might see some advantages and disadvantages if you seek opinions from them. They might suggest a good name. Why not seek others’ opinions now. Or, present your choices and let them express their views. In this case, you could test the viability of your chosen names.
Some tools you might like to use in selecting a domain name include:
NameBoy
DomainsBot
There are other factors to be considered in choosing a domain name. You might have some ideas. Please share it. You might help others in doing so.
Image: Courtesy of webdesign.com
Thank you for your time.
I appreciate very much if you could drop some comments below.
What would be my domain name?
Why would I want my own domain name?
These are only two questions I asked about domain name but there are other questions that could directly affect my choices of a domain name. Whether I will decide to have my site running as hosted site or non-hosted site, it is very important that I consider the abovementioned questions.
Have you ever wonder the process of naming a newborn child? Or perhaps, a new business? Parents like myself have a great and equally difficult time choosing a name for a newborn. The name will stick with the child in his/her lifetime. For a business, it will be its brand name.
As I browsed the Internet in my quest for ways of making money online, I came across so many important factors that bloggers implicitly and explicitly mentioned in their successful blogs. Here are some factors:
Site's Purposes and Goals
I discerned that all great blog names have something related to their goals. The domain name always commensurate to the long-term vision of the site. I will not be repeating here questions on how I brainstormed the goals and objectives of my site. But, those questions are great to consider if you are deciding for your own domain. I always go back to the strategic goals.
The Niche
Sites within a certain niche oftentimes carry names related to the niche like engadget.com, sitesell.com and hometips.com to name some.
Keywords
In relation to the niche, some successful sites usually incorporated keywords in their domain names like problogger.com (Professionals and Bloggers), AssociatePrograms.com (Associates and Programs), sitesell.com (Site and sell), hometips.com (home and tips), etc.
Domain Names anchored on keywords have some advantages. From the site’s name, readers could already infer what are its contents. It could also help the site gain Search Engine ranking. However, I found out that they shun away from putting too many keywords with the often-abused hyphen symbol.
Branding
Mostly of the successful sites that I visited have their domain names as their brand names. So, it is very important also to consider your future (go back again to your goals) when you decided to use your site’s name as your branded product. Of course, you have to remember that brand names usually are sticky names. Good brand names usually stick into readers/consumers memory. In short, it is memorable and simple. People are so busy today that they sometimes can’t remember long and complicated names.
Traffic
Most sites talking about choosing a domain name leave out considering the traffic or the readers. I found this incorporated only in few sites and among them is a prominent site, Problogger. Of course, the first thing that came into my mind was that whatever name a site have, after considering mostly the factors that I am mentioning now here, it generated traffic.
However, if we could incorporate this factor in our brainstorming for a domain name, we could come up with a better name. Let’s take for an example a loyal reader typing your site name directly at the address bar. If this loyal reader mistakenly typed your site name without “s”, say, “AssociatesProgram.com, then it will land to that site instead of landing to “AssociatePrograms.com” or say, “moneywork-home’ in lieu of “moneyworkhome”
Name Length
Short names are commonly easier to remember and of course, easier to type. Actually, it is okay for you to have a maximum of 67 characters for a domain name but the shorter the better because of the same reasons I mentioned above. However, if you go for a shorter name, try to be unique.
Uniqueness
Unique names could give you some edges against your competitors. For me, I don’t want that I will be the 100,000th person using that the same name. A unique name is very easy to remember. It is far better if this name could leave an imprint to the memory or picture/image related like this unusually unique name “ForkintheHead”.
Think of the Future
Actually, most established sites adviced to limit the niche of a site if a blogger wanted to establish himself/herself to that niche. A limited sub-niche is good for site contents but a limited domain name could be dangerous. Try to avoid name that is time-bound or geographically bound or content bound. We could not afford to have a domain name that is passé or limited geographically since Internet has no boundaries. We could not afford also to limit the name to “bloggingtips.com” because sooner or later, we will be dealing to some topics that are not confined to blogging only.
Legality
It is good to ride to a name already established. However, we could not afford to be legally liable from legal complications. Try to think of a name that nobody could sue you of using it. Trademarked name is a no-no.
Seek Opinions from Others
It is better to seek opinions from others. They might see some advantages and disadvantages if you seek opinions from them. They might suggest a good name. Why not seek others’ opinions now. Or, present your choices and let them express their views. In this case, you could test the viability of your chosen names.
Some tools you might like to use in selecting a domain name include:
NameBoy
DomainsBot
There are other factors to be considered in choosing a domain name. You might have some ideas. Please share it. You might help others in doing so.
Image: Courtesy of webdesign.com
Thank you for your time.
I appreciate very much if you could drop some comments below.
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