When you’re starting a new blog, the first question that comes in mind: How to choose a domain name for your blog.
If you have a brand like MyTastyCuisene, then you can go for it as the same domain name. It will surely add value to your brand and make your brand more popular.
In case you don’t want to go for it, then you can make it even short like mtc.com or mytc.com. You may choose a custom domain for the newly launched brand.
Selecting a perfect domain name is a quite difficult task for any rookie. Here we have shared a few ideas to choose a perfect domain name. So you can get one or more the best suited for your website.
So many tips and tricks are there to select a domain name by which you are going to dominate the world but the most important tips I have given in this article. Finding the best domain is like a finding needle in the haystack.
For the newbies, it may be possible to get the desired domain name, but for the brands, it seems more difficult as most of the popular names have taken.
If your brand is a common niche, then it might be a headache for you. Suppose, your brand name is ‘Coffee-Mug’ and very popular in your local area or even in your country, but the domain name is already taken.
In such a case, you can buy it from the third party who has already taken or select another suitable name like coldcoffeemug.com or sweetcoffeemug.com. In some cases, it may be even short or the one-word domain also. Only select it, if easy to pronounciate and simple to type.
How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Blog
1. Niche and Keywords
You must think about the niche of your blog or the website very carefully before buying a domain name. Remember, in long terms of business; it is your online identity, your brand, and your property.
Though it can be changed easily, when you will become an established brand or company, it may be very difficult for you. If you would like to change it, you will have to create whole your empire again from scratch.
So finding a perfect niche and a domain name based on that is a very confusing and may put you in the complex that what to select or what to not. It’s not difficult as much, but your skills are tested here.
There are two types of the domain.
Keyword-based Domains
Keyword-based domains are somewhat focused on the particular niche or subject you might choose. If you have selected the niche for your site as Sports, then the domain name is around that topic only.
Deviating from topic may lead to losing your returning visitors in the future to a great extent. So you have to select the domain name as sportsgeeky.com or sportspull.com. The domains that I am giving here are available at present as some top-notch domains have been taken already.
Selecting a Keyword-based is very helpful as it focused on a particular niche. You can create content easily compare to the multi-niche site or the blog. It also helps your visitors to get the required information below a single roof.
If you will work smart, then it the most profitable strategy. The chances of the search are more, and hence it may be helpful to drive the traffic to your site.
Generic Domains
Generic or independent domains are not preferable as a rookie or if you have not owned business. As the businesses have their names, they can continue easily with their name or brand.
But for other people, it may be risky if you will not work that much on your content and overall strategies required for the growth of your site. It may also cause a deviation from the main topic you have selected, and site rating lowers to the very poor.
The benefit of such domains is that you can change the type of your content if not work and switch to another one.
But in my point of view, you have to select the keyword-based domain name unless and until you are not sure about your plans. Assumed you have chosen a beautiful niche for you are passionate.
Here, you can see the difference in opinions, but the final decision will definitely be of yours.
2. Domain Name Extension
Domain name extension also play an important role in selecting the perfect domain name. As the average people search most likely for the websites with ‘.com’ Extension, prefer to buy a domain name ending with the ‘.com.’
If you want the particular domain name, then only go for the other TLD extensions. Though other cheap solutions and ccTLD extensions are available, only a few are of the worth buying them.
If your blog or the website falls under a particular category, then you can select the other options like .fashion, .club, .mobi or .shop, etc. According to me, it’s a gamble if you are planning a long-term career online and you are going to lose your potential customers as the redirect to another site for saving a few bucks initially.
3. Unique but Easy to Remember
The unique and easy to remember domain name has more potential to grow. The people generally don’t remember the regular things or especially, names. Being unique has more advantage over regular keyword domains as brain work for it automatically.
If you are planning the tech blog or blog about blogging, avoid the same keywords in your domain name and go with the unique domain name idea. Because so many established blogs are using the same keywords in their names and you won’t survive or lose the race probably.
Apart from that, the domain name must be easy to remember. If you success to make it short and sweet, then it will be really helpful to you. Another thing to follow is that the domain name should be as simple as to type. Excessive words or using slang may look funny & interesting, but it won’t help you as a professional and in long-term also.
4. Avoid Special Characters and Numbers
The experts always recommend keeping the domain name simple and concise. Using special characters like the hyphen, dash or @ sign, and the numbers unless necessary, is very bad practice while registering the domain name. People likely to forget where special characters or numbers are placed. So do not take the risk in this section.
5. Copyright and Trademarks
I’m sure that you have understood what I am going to discuss. So my humble request to all of you is not to use copyrighted words or trademarks of other people or companies in your domain name.
Even don’t make it the part of your domain. Exploiting copyright may lead to a legal conflict, and you will have to face notice from the court.
The one more point related to this point is to understand two terms, cybersquatting, and typosquatting.
If you are taking advantage of any other brand without citation or monetary value added to them, it’s completely unethical.
Though it is a different topic, I have mentioned it here because the cases around these both have happened in the past few years.
The case I would more likely to discuss is the cybersquatting case between Virtual Work Inc. and Volkswagon for the domain VW.com. You can search on it for more information.
There are so many other things to be taken into account. They are the availability of the domain name at the time of buying, the price of that particular domain (depends on the domain registrar company), domain privacy and security.
Some web hosting companies may give you a free domain for one year or a lifetime of your hosting plan. You can get it at no extra cost.
Although I recommended buying a domain and web hosting from the different companies, you can get it in the bundle with some reputed web-hosting companies like GreenGeeks.
Summary
- Select a perfect niche (the unique and, that you passionate about).
- Select domain relevant to your niche or as a brand name, if any
- Be it easy to remember and simple to type even for a kid.
- Prefer TLD extension; the first choice must be the ‘.com.’
- Avoid special characters and numbers, whenever possible.
- Don’t raise any legal issues or copyright infringement.
That’s all you have to take care of. If you want to add more points, let me know by putting in the comment box below or feel free to mail us.
You May Also Like
5 Best Domain Registrars [Domain Name Registration Starts at $0.99]
Nice Article 🙂