How To Choose The Best Domain Name For Your Blog

After You’ve decided to start a new blog, the only thing standing between you and your first published post is the name you are going to use as a domain.

But how do you choose a great name when thousands or even millions of names are already taken?
Should you go with .com, .blog, .online, or one of the hundreds of other top level domain choices?
What about SEO and your personal/business branding?

There’s a lot of information online about the perfect way to select your blog’s domain name and here are the 8 most critical points to consider while you decide:

1- Domain = Your brand:
Whether you’re looking for a new job, promoting your services/products to clients, or just trying to keep your visitors entertained, Your Blog is You.
If it’s a personal blog, it will and should reflect on you personally. If it’s a business one, it’s part of your business brand.
Take the time to think about the feelings and the messages you want to share with your visitors, or you want your blog to convey, and consider them when you jungle between your domain name options.

2- Radio Test:
If you say your domain name aloud and the person next to you can type it into their browser quickly and without asking you to spell it, congratulation, it passes the “radio test.”

3- Hyphens are for losers:
Studies show that a hyphenated domain name can weaken your blog as they can look spammy to search engines.  And they are difficult for visitors to type in and remember.

4- Keep it short (and simple):
Registering a domain name that is short and memorable isn’t as easy as you think but it’s something that you need to do.
Consider the fact that the fewer characters or words your domain name have, the more likely your customers will spell your domain correctly, remember it and even share it.
Short domain names also display fully on small screens, an important factor now that most Internet users browse on smartphones or tablets rather of computers.

5- To .com or not to .com:
still, and after all these years, .com is nevertheless the market leader, the most popular one and still appears to have a trusted authority with internet users.
And let’s make it short for this one, .com is the single option you have.

6- Social media availability:
Make sure your blog domain name is available as an account name or username in the social media channels you’ll use.
Don’t be the one that will confuse users every time they search your brand on Facebook or Twitter.

7- Keep squatters away and avoid confusing:
Protect your brand and your blog by registering few other variants of the domain, for example, Stabucks.com redirects to Starbucks.com to protect the brand from squatters who can register a similar domain as your name as try to use it to steal from your clients.
Also, seek to avoid other brands’ names and don’t be that squatter every one of us hates. So Make sure the name you’ve selected isn’t trademarked, copyrighted or being used by another company before clicking that “Register Now” button.

8- Use keywords:
Try using keywords that describe your business and the services you offer and make sure they’re part of your brand.
It doesn’t help to improve your rank on search engines as before but it just makes more sense to your customers.

9- (Bonus) Protect your privacy:
Keep your personal information safely locked away.
So next time you are going to register a domain name, choose the option to buy a domain privacy protection.