The name of your blog is its identity. This will be the first thing that readers will know about your site. This is also one of the main things that separate your website from the thousands and millions of others in the blogosphere so you have to make it count.
Your target audience will be attracted to your site if they can identify with your blogsite’s name. Thus, you need to ensure that the name that you choose or create will be relevant to your content and your target audience. It also has to be as unique as possible to make it memorable. Plus, it needs to be short enough to be remembered without much effort.
Choosing a name for your blog is probably one of the most time-consuming tasks that you will deal with at the start of your blogging journey. Unless you have already established your site’s name at the get-go, you will likely spend hours, days and even weeks just to come up with a blog name that will be eye-catching, memorable and unique at the same time. This is likely as hard as choosing the perfect template for your website.
If you are struggling with naming your blogsite, read on. Below are some tips on how you can choose or create the perfect name for your blog.
Choose a Theme
If you are thinking of making your own blog, you likely already have a theme – this is the topic your blog will be focusing on. If you have an idea on what your blog will be about, write in down. This will make decision making easier and faster later on. If you are still undecided on what your theme will be, these steps might help you.
- List down the things that interest you and the things that you are good at or knowledgeable on.
- Group the items on your list into categories or groups. Put things that have similarities in a group (i.e. put grammar, punctuation, syntax, and capitalization in “Language” and put hair salons, nail spa, styling products and moisturizing creams in “Self Care” or “Cosmetics”).
- Choose from the list the things that you think you will be able to explain or share in more detail.
- Choose the group that you feel that you can focus on. You can also combine multiple groups to create a broader group with sub-groups.
- The group that you choose will be the theme of your blog.
Brainstorm for Names
Once you have decided your blog’s theme, you can now start brainstorming for your blog’s name. Since you already have an idea on what your website will be about, it is easier to search for words and names that will be relevant to your content.
Here are some tips to help you in your blog name brainstorming.
- Use pieces of paper to write random words that are related to your theme. Write as many as you can for a bigger selection.
- Use dictionaries and other reading materials to look for words that are relevant to your content. Write down synonyms of words that you already have.
- Ask for opinion from different types of people. Fresh perspective from others will greatly help to know what your perspective audience thinks of your ideas.
Once you have accumulated a good number of terms to use for your blog name, it’s time to decide.
Choosing the Name
You don’t have to hurry in choosing a name for your blog. Once you have purchased your domain name, you will find it hard to change it unless you have the budget to purchase another if you change your mind. Once you have started promoting your site, it will even be harder to change its name. So, take your time in choosing the best blog name.
Here are some tips to make name choosing a little bit easier.
- Choose a name that is short yet eye catching. Remarkable websites have two syllables in their website name. Think of Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter. If you notice, the names are made up of two syllables only. This is to make their domain name easy to remember and say.You don’t have to force yourself to come up with two-syllable names, though. More than three syllables is fine as long as it sounds “right” and is not too hard to pronounce or remember.
- Choose terms that are relevant to your content and the nature of your site. If your content has the serious tone, you might want to avoid slang terms. This is not always the case but if you are providing content to corporate businesses, you might want to choose a rather formal name.
- Select terms that are relevant to your target audience. The names that will stick with your audience are the ones that are relevant to them. Are you trying to write for an older audience? What is the demographic of your readers? Will they like a fun approach on writing or a more serious tone better?
- Use a domain name registrar to search for available domain names. If you have already come up with a bunch of names for your site, try searching the online to see if they are still available. It will be a waste of time to build your plans without making sure that your chosen is still available. Namecheap.com is one of the biggest registrars online. Signing up is easy and purchasing a domain from them is hassle-free. You can check domain names for free so that you can remove from your list names that are already taken to narrow down your selection.
- Check for alternative TLDs. If your chosen blog name doesn’t have a .com TLD available, you might want to check other top-level domains. TLD is the name attached to your blog’s name. it is installed in the root zone of the name space. There are a multitude of TLDs that you can choose from; among the most popular ones, aside from .com, are .info, .net, .org and .biz.
- Say your domain name out loud. There are times when our ideas might sound great at first but when spoken out loud, they just don’t sound right. It doesn’t mean that your idea is wrong – there are just times when repeated, a name doesn’t have the charm you think it does at first. So, before committing to your chosen name, read it out loud and see how you like it.
- Write it down a bunch of times. If you think that your domain sounds and looks alright even after saying it and writing it down, you might have the right one for you. You will likely be able to live with it and write about it without getting tired of it even after years of blogging.
Register Your Domain Name
If you have finally chosen the name for your blog, it’s time to set it in stone… or on a domain name registrar. Follow these steps for a hassle-free domain registration.
- Choose a domain name registrar. Namecheap.com is by far one of the easiest ones to use. They sell cheap domain names and provide a great selection of TLDs.
- Sign up for an account. Make sure that you take note of the information you provide since you will need them when logging back in to your account. Your email, username and password are some of the most important details that you need to save in your computer for easy retrieval. Check this post for a step by step guide on how to sign up for a Namecheap account.
- Set up the payment method. This will allow you to purchase and renew domain names and other things that you need for your website. Paypal.com is one of the most convenient payment gateways that you can connect to your domain registrar account for easy purchases and renewals. It is also quite safe and secured so you don’t have to worry about your bank details getting leaked. Check this post for a step by step guide on how to sign up for a Paypal account.
- Register and pay for your domain name. Once you have purchased your domain name, you can connect it to your hosting so that you can start creating your own blog. You can find a step by step guide on how to do that here.
Create a Banner
It is up to you whether you want to design a banner for your blog name or not. Some website owners choose to have a banner for their website to make it more attractive and to establish identity. Having a banner also helps with marketing since you can place your banner on social media sites to advertise your blog.Others opt for a simple encoded name on top of their page.
It is totally up to your decision which design is best for your website.
Once you are done with choosing a blog name, you can start setting up your blog site. Same as choosing a name, choosing a template can also take a while due to the huge selection available online. While selecting a hosting service and template, it is also a good idea to learn some light coding along the way. This will be a great help in customizing your blog and making it more user-friendly. Here is a simple guide on choosing a blog template for your website.
Learn how to register the domain name you chose on Namecheap!
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