How To Choose The Right Domain Name For Your Blog?

“A Name Never Makes Anyone Famous; But The Man Does”

Yeah! That’s right and it goes to any kind of name (i.e. human name, product name, brand name). A brand becomes famous for their products and services not for their name.

After choosing the right niche for your blog, you have to pick up the right domain name for the blog. The right domain name is more valuable than its cost.

“A good name is better than riches.” – Miguel de Cervantes

In case of domain name, this saying suits very well. You might know, the domain name BUSINESS.COM has been sold for $8 million! Yeah; for $8 million!!! and it is the highest rate (till now) of a single domain name. Although  it was registered with only $8 dollar.

So it can be a very much profitable business, registering it with a low rate and selling it with high profit afterwords.

OK…………. I’m not talking about the buy-sell domain trade, I’m talking about how to choose the right domain. Let me introduce:

While you’re going to choose a domain name for a blog, you may consider three things:

i) Brand Name

ii) Your Name

ii) Keyword

• Brand Name: It is the most considerable thing for choosing a domain name. If you want to build a brand online, you should choose the brand name as domain name.

Example of Brand Name as Domain:

i) Problogger: Darren Rowse built it.

ii) Copyblogger: Brian Clark built it.

Please keep in mind; brand name can never make famous itself. For instance, Google is the current King in internet world; but if Google were named as Bing and Bing were named as Google. Who would be the King?

• Your Name as Domain: If you’re like me; want to turn your name into a brand, you should choose your name as domain name. So when people will link your blog, they will link your blog with your name and it is an opportunity to turn your name into Brand.

Example of Name as Domain:

i) John Chow: You know JC is a brand;  most successful and most influential internet marketer.

ii) Chris Brogan: Chris Brogan is another most successful internet marketer who makes his name a brand.

iii) Dean Hunt: Dean is another most successful internet marketer and he is more famous for buzz marketing.

So, Darren, Brian and others who didn’t choose their name as domain, made a great mistake?

No…………. Absolutely not. Although they haven’t chosen as domain name, they built the brand and authority. Now people know them as the author of the brand.

• Keyword as domain name: It’s a smart idea, which makes easy to rank well in search engine for specific keyword(s). People like to link other blogs or websites with their domain name. So when people will link these blogs they will link with their respective domain name and as it is the desired keyword, so the blog will get some anchor text value.

Example of Keyword on Domain Name:

i) HowToMakeMyBlog: Marko Saric own this and it is on the top position for the keyword phrase: “how to make my blog.” A great blog which contains most valuable information about blogging.

ii) EarnByBlog: My buddy Alamin own this. He is using keyword as domain name. I hope it will get the top position for the keyword.

OK……………….. It’s your choice  which you want to use as domain name; Brand name, Your name or the Keyword. But here are few tips to choose effectively.

Keep It Short and Memorable:

Look at this: It-is-the-largest-domain-name-in-the-world.com

It is easy to remember, but you shouldn’t use it as domain name. Why?

Because, today’s people are too busy (or lazy), they’ll never type this largest domain name. So if you own such kind of domain, you’re going to lose many visitors. Look at my domain name; it is short and easy to remember. If you can remember my name, you can remember my blog. It is EunusAt.com, that means Eunus(me) At Dot Com.

I could choose my full name EunusHosen.com, but I didn’t just I want to make it short.

Again, Chris Garrett (The co-author of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income with Darren Rowse), owns ChrisG.com instead of ChrisGarret.com. So making your domain name short and easy to remember will be wise decision.

Should I use hyphen (-) on domain name?

Many people want to choose it to get some SEO advantage. Look at the following example:

Marco Saric’s blog is HowToMakeMyBlog.com, but if it would How-to-make-my-blog.com; what would happened?

Would you tell someone about the hyphen (-)? Would you tell something like that “how hyphen to hyphen make hyphen my hyphen blog.com”?

Might not. So always avoid the hyphens in domain name.

Should I Use Number (i.e. 1,2,3) on Domain Name?

Many people may argue about it, but I suggest to use number on domain only if it makes sense.

I’ve a blog which contain number on domain name. It is BlogAt21.com. The domain name makes sense that this blog at 21. Yeah! I’ve created this blog on 21st birth anniversary. That’s why it’s name: BlogAt21.com

Which Domain Extension (.com, .net, .org) should I Choose?

It is the most important thing to consider while choosing the domain name. Here is a statistics:

Out of the 32 million or so domain names registered worldwide over 22 million of them are .coms. The second most popular is .net, with a paltry 5 million domains registered. Source: Active-Domain

Yeah dot com (.com) is widely used domain name in the world and you should do so. You should jump to other extension only if .com is not available for the domain.

Should I use Country Specific extension?

Many people choose this kind of domain name; something.com.uk or something.com.ca. But I suggest you to choose this kind of extension only if the website contains country specific information. Otherwise, just leave it; as it makes your domain name unusual longer.

Should I Choose Modified Popular Domain Name?

There are many people want to use a modified domain name. For instance, JohnChow.com is a popular domain name. Back in 2007 when Google banned JohnChow.com from Google search result, there are some clever mans tried to grab the chance. Domain names like NotJohnChow.com, JohnCow.com has been registered. Because John Chow was a hot keyword then. Till Now JohnCow.com is most successful blog owned by Jason Katzenback.

Caution: Although some people gotten some worms for having similar domain name, you shouldn’t do that. If you seriously want to get such kind of domain; at least look at the name and make sure that it is not a registered trademark. If so, you may have to go to jail.

Have a Happy Blogging

Eunus Hosen

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