Advice for new bloggers: Choosing a name for your blog
April 14, 2009 – 8:36 amAs part one of my Essential Advice for New Bloggers series we’re talking about branding. Perhaps the most basic form of branding is what you name your blog, which is what we’ll be discussing today.
Here are some basic guidelines to consider when coming up with a name for your blog.
Make it memorable and unique
If you start paying attention, you’ll notice something about all the famous bloggers; they have interesting and unique names. Dooce. Pioneer Woman. Bossy. Fluid Pudding. These are names that stand out, pique a reader’s curiosity, and stick in your mind. With some exceptions, it’s best to choose a name that isn’t too long and that isn’t likely to get confused with another blog. Get creative! Use your friends and family to help brainstorm, or your friendly thesaurus or wikipedia. You’ll be stuck with this name for a long time, so make it something you love!
Pick something that can grow with you
It’s easy to choose a blog name that makes sense for you NOW, like ‘I have a three year old’ or ‘Just turned 30′ or ‘Blonde-haired Mama’. But what happens when your three year old turns four or you turn 31 or you dye your hair purple?
Better to pick a name that is less specific and more scalable. The best blog names are lasting. Take Dooce, for example. Here’s a name that can be used long after the blogger’s child is grown and married. It doesn’t imply anything and therefore is infinitely scalable. Any blog with “mom” in the title will always be restricted to mom-type topics, just as a blog with “Seattle” in its name will be hard to work with if you move out of state. Not to say that you should avoid specificity, but before you go that route, make sure your selection is something you can live with for the foreseeable future.
Ensure that the name is easy to pronounce and spell
Granted this is rather boring, but that doesn’t make it less important. People should be able to easily spell and pronounce the name of your blog.
Be wary of cutesy spellings of real words (kidz, for example). While this can work in some cases, it also can lead to people mistyping your URL and not being able to find your blog. Oh, the horror!
Here are two basic exercises to test the name that you’ve come up with. First, write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to someone. Ask them to read it aloud. Did they pronounce it right? Does it sound ok?
Next, find a different person than the one you just used, and tell them the name of your blog. Ask them to write it down. Did they get it? How far off were they? To really boost the STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE of this survey you can repeat the exercise with, say, five or ten or 2,000 people.
Buy the domain
Don’t just stick with the yourblog.blogspot.com or yourblog.wordpress.com that your host gives you for free. First and foremost, owning your own domain makes you look serious. Professional. With it. It also helps ensure that you don’t pick a name that someone else is already blogging under (like I did, when I started my blog ‘Adventures in Parenting’).
Even if you’re thinking, “Oh come on! This is totally just a hobby. I don’t want to invest the money in buying my own domain.” STOP RIGHT THERE. Play a little game of pretend with me for a minute. Imagine that you blog for a while and people recognize the truly brilliant wonder that is YOU and you start getting masses of fans and readers. You start to see possibilities that you never dreamt of. Oprah is calling and people are throwing money at you. (wipe that drool off your chin). Now imagine that you don’t own your domain. Kicking yourself, aren’t you?
It’s SO much easier to buy the domain when you’re starting out than it is to try and do this down the road. Ask anyone who’s had to do it and they’ll tell you that renaming a successful blog is a nightmare and a surefire way to lose a lot of that hard-earned traffic.
GoDaddy.com is one of many websites where you can buy URLs for dirt cheap ($6.95, last I checked).
And, one final tip on this topic, your URL should match your blog’s name. So, if your blog is called ’I Love Fuzzy Wuzzy Puppies’, then you should own www.ilovefuzzywuzzypuppies.com.
For more helpful advice on choosing a name for your blog, check out:
Time for you to weigh in. What do you like or dislike about your blog’s name? What do you think is most important when naming a blog?
(Oh, and yes I already know that some of you can’t spell “Absolutely.” I forgive you.)
Related Posts
By Kelley on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
I’m in the process of converting my blog to my own domain, so this series comes with impeccable timing! My new domain name will be mammalog.com, but I’m having a bit of buyer’s remorse because I might have been happier adding an ’s’ and doing mammalogs.com. I might just purchase the plural too and direct them to the same place.
One thing I would add is that it’s usually effective to stick to .com, .net, or .info. GoDaddy offers package rates for purchasing the domain with multiple endings.
Kelleys last blog post..Tackle It Tuesday
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bananas Reply:
April 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Actually Kelly I happen to know there’s a blog called “mamalogues” (the name is trademarked) so I think you’re better off without the s at the end!
Great point about the .com/.net/.info.
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By Goddess in Progress on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
I love this advice! I think one tricky aspect to picking a blog name is that some people start it just as a way to keep far-flung family in the loop, so calling it “the Jones family blog” is no big deal. It’s when your focus shifts and you start picking up outside readers that it becomes an issue. (And I know you’re going to talk about family / name / privacy issues later.)
I only wish I bit the bullet and bought my domain a while ago. An important tidbit: I don’t know precisely how it’s done, but there are people out there who check which domain names are searched on sites like GoDaddy, and then buy them if you don’t (thereby forcing you to pay THEM a larger fee if you really want the domain name). I lost mine that way. instantdomainsearch.com is one that I believe is not stored/searched in that way.
Goddess in Progresss last blog post..Makes My Monday - The BOB Returns
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By Leigh on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
I have a question… I just renamed my blog this afternoon (since I’m dealing with this very topic of picking a relative and yet catchy name.) The site I really wanted is taken already. If it’s not owned by that user, can I buy it and kick them out?
Leighs last blog post..New blog name
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bananas Reply:
April 14th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I’m guessing what you mean is that someone else is using the name but not the URL. Like they’re called Absolutely Bananas but they don’t have http://www.absolutelybananas.com? Right? I would encourage you to come up with a new, unique name. The problem with having the same name as another blog (and don’t think they’ll change their name just b/c you buy the URL… there’s no guarantee of that) the problem is that you’re both in the same space, so people will get confused. What happens when you’re both on a blog roll? How do you differentiate yourself when you leave comments? I’d run from knowingly choosing the same name as another blogger, srsly.
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By HeatherY on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
I recently renamed my blog for one of the reasons you mentioned. It was formally Middle Georgia Mommy. Well, we are about to move to coastal Georgia and I didn’t like having mommy in the title. I’m much happier not that its changed. I’ll have to consider the domain name. Great tips!
HeatherYs last blog post..Again With the Playground Peeps
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By Hotomom on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
I have a question for you… I am not sure if my name is too long, I considered calling it just hotomom but no one gets it except for me and a few others. I chose my original name because of a sign I gave my mom that stated “Who are these kids and why are they calling me mom?” What do you think?
Hotomoms last blog post..Top Ten Tuesday - 10 Things I want for my birthday
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bananas Reply:
April 14th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
honestly? I’d stick with hotomom. First because you have the URL, 2nd because even if people don’t “get it” it’s still unique and memorable. You’re the only hotomom I know!
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By MonsteRawr on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
My one suggestion would be to pick a name that is fairly ambiguous. I know that if I’m looking through a blogroll and the name is specific and something that doesn’t interest me or I don’t identify with, I won’t even look at it.
And listen to the woman and BUY YOUR DOMAIN! Not only will it save you trouble down the road, but I also don’t usually bother with a blog that ends with blogspot or wordpress. It signifies a lack of commitment.
MonsteRawrs last blog post..Squeeze that square ass!
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By Formerly Gracie on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
Listen to the woman. She’s right, people!
I’ve started three blogs, closed down two, since 2007.
The first one was a “…blogspot.com” and the place where I mostly bitched and blogged in “secret”. Well, whatdaya know? A year later is was getting decent traffic and had a solid readership.
Then, we moved abroad and I launched “American Mom in London” as a way to keep in touch with all those people I secretly talked smack about on the first blog. Only one or two of my readers made the leap, but it didn’t take long to build a strong following of another sort- fellow expats, Brits, and Anglophiles.
Then, my hubby lost his job and we had to move back to States. Too bad the blog couldn’t follow. (I can’t really be the “American Mom in London” if I’m not in London anymore…)
So I decided to strike it with my own URL. This time NO ONE made the leap with me and I’ve had to start all over again, except this time it seems so much harder to reestablish readership and the traffic.
Formerly Gracies last blog post..And So It Begins
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By Jourdan on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
This is great advice!!! I just started my blog and have wondered how to get more readers…Thanks so much!
Jourdans last blog post..New Things Are Happening!!
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By Scatteredmom on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
Okay this might be kind of a stupid question, but the reason I go with Blogger is I like the format. I’m comfortable with it. If I buy my domain, then how does that all work? Do I host it remotely through Blogger, and how do I do that?
Scatteredmoms last blog post..Recipe Feature: One Bowl Brownies
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bananas Reply:
April 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am
You can totally stick with Blogger and still have your own domain. Just go to settings > publishing and click the “custom domain” option. Then follow the instructions for setting it up.
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bananas Reply:
April 15th, 2009 at 9:25 am
also… here’s an article telling you exactly how to do it: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373
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By Scatteredmom on Apr 14, 2009 | Reply
Oh and I have one more question. My blog is “Notes From the Cookie Jar” but the addy is “cookienotes” (because I thought the other was too long or something, can’t remember).
If I bought my domain, then should I stick with cookienotes.com? Or change it to notesfromthecookiejar.com?
Scatteredmoms last blog post..Recipe Feature: One Bowl Brownies
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bananas Reply:
April 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am
it’s really your call, but I would recommend having your domain name match your blog name, one way or the other. :)
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By Heidi on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
I can so spell absoluttly!! Hey when do you get to the part where I make millions. Kidding - this is great info to review and make sure I am doing.
Heidis last blog post..the skinny
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By katie on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
Ugh! Really? Do I need to do this? I’ve been wanting to make the leap to a new domain for SOOOO long but I’m really nervous about loosing people.
Should I just do it already?
katies last blog post..Blogger to Blogger
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bananas Reply:
April 15th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I hear you… really I do. BUT here’s the thing. The longer you wait, the more people you’ll have to lose. Rip off the band-aid! :)
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By Alison (aka Cluck and Tweet) on Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
We’re two moms who sometimes want to cluck about something and sometimes want to tweet, so we went with http://www.cluckandtweet.com. But a lot of people (including my own father) seem to think it’s “tweetandcluck.com.” That doesn’t even sound right! What are these people thinking? What do you do with people who can’t get it right even when you’re standing over their shoulders, telling them which keys to strike. No offense to my dad, God love him.
Alison (aka Cluck and Tweet)s last blog post..It’s like this, only better.
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By bloger on Apr 16, 2009 | Reply
Hmmm…interesting read. But I think most important for readers (than yr domain name) of your blog is THE CONTENT ;)
blogers last blog post..Try Social Bookmarking To Generate Back Links For Promoting Your Blog
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By JILLIAN Wolf on Apr 16, 2009 | Reply
I did it. I bought blueshelled.com. I’m in the process of making it work with a friend who “gets” how to put a page together. Frankly, I’m nervous about this. EEEEEK! I wouldn’t have done it without you, though. :)
JILLIAN Wolfs last blog post..In which my head blows up
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bananas Reply:
April 20th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
glad to hear it! you go girl! ;)
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By Mommy Cracked on Apr 18, 2009 | Reply
This is such an excellent post! I can’t wait to read the rest of them.
I’m a little sorry I have Mommy in my blog’s title, just because of the reasons you stated….you know, if I happen to still be blogging when I am 87 and all of that. I’ve thought of changing my blog name, but I’ve had many readers tell me that my blog name and the egg in my header are what they recognize right off, so I am hesitant to change.
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By Cassandra Frear on Apr 19, 2009 | Reply
I just set up a new blog on blogger. So this discussion is very interesting to me. My blog name is explained in my Saturday post (www.applepieforhomeschools.com).
Cassandra Frears last blog post..Sunday Morning
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By Reluctant Housewife on Apr 20, 2009 | Reply
Interesting advice. I’m going to think about buying my domain name.
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By Trenches of Mommyhood on Apr 21, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for doing this series! It’s very helpful!
I hate that my blog name is too long and that my domain name doesn’t match my site name…oh the things I have learned after almost 3 years of blogging!
Trenches of Mommyhoods last blog post..A Book Review and Giveaway!
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By Amy from Occupation: Mommy on Apr 22, 2009 | Reply
I found your blog from a link on Daring Young Mom. You have some great information. I have been blogging since Feb of 08 and still have a .blogspot URL. I was inspired by you to look into buying my domain, but somebody beat me to it! I went to http://www.occupationmommy.com and it says “site coming soon” and copyright 2009. Is there anything I can do? I feel like somebody stole my blog name! Why didn’t I just buy it earlier??!!!???
Amy from Occupation: Mommys last blog post..Announcing…
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