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Starting a blog is a big and exciting step. So of course, you want to make sure you get everything perfect when you start out! The first step is picking a good blog name!
So today, I’ll be going over tips and tricks to picking a good blog name, what happens if you decided to change, along with the pros and cons of popular blog name ideas!
Table of Contents
1. TAKE YOUR TIME
First and foremost, take your time when picking a good blog name because it is important! It’s what you’ll be known by, and what people will be searching for when they look for your content!
While you don’t want to spend months picking a name, you do want to seriously consider what your blog will be called. You don’t want to rush and pick a name that you’ll hate later, because changing it will be a hassle!
If you decide to later change it, consider these things you’ll have to do;
-CHANGING YOUR DOMAIN NAME
Getting the domain name in the first place can sometimes be a hassle, so imagine having to change it!
Plus, if you don’t change it correctly, you could seriously lose some blog traffic! And, trust me, there’s a big process to changing a domain name correctly that you don’t want to go through!
If you’re looking to see if your domain is available, you should check out NameCheap! It’s super easy to do, and free!
-CHANGING SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
It’s likely that your social media accounts will have your blog name on it. So you’ll either have to change all those names or just start fresh!
Can you imagine starting over after you already have hundreds of followers that you now would need to get back? No thanks!
-FIXING BROKEN LINKS
You’ll have to think about every place that houses a link to your blog. Social media bios, pins, emails that you’ve sent and places you’ll likely never get back to (old tweets, pins or comments). Other people may find those links- but it won’t matter now, because they’re all broken!
Good luck tracking all those links down and changing them!
-YOU’LL BE KNOWN FOR THAT FIRST BLOG NAME
Even though you’ve changed the name on social media, some people who have been following you probably won’t notice. You’ve built up a reputation and trust with your first name.
With a new name, people might not know it’s actually you when they see your post in their timeline!
You’ll be known for that first blog name to everyone who follows you! And people that don’t see your posts that you’ve changed names may never know the difference! Big loss in followers and readers!
There’s a lot of other things to consider when changing your blog name, but these reasons alone are enough to give me a huge headache!
So, in the end, pick a good blog name so that you won’t have to change it in the future. But don’t take too long on it because then you’ll never launch! (Which isn’t good either!)
2. EASY TO REMEMBER
Your blog name will be the first thing people remember, so make it easy for them! Here are some tips;
-MAKE YOUR BLOG NAME CATCHY
Make your blog name catchy, so that it’s easy to remember. Maybe make it a cute play on words!
However, you don’t want a domain name that’s super long, because that might make it harder for people to remember!
Also, make sure that your name is easy to spell. You don’t want people to make spelling mistakes when searching for your blog either!
-INCLUDE IMPORTANT KEYWORDS
Your blog name should relate to the niche that you’ve picked, so a good blog name should include a search term or the main topic of your blog.
For example, my blog name is businesswomenthrive.com . I’ll admit, it’s probably a bit longer than it should be but it has the main topic of my blog right in the title!
When you see my blog name, my topic of helping women thrive and do well in their business is pretty dang obvious! So, make it catchy but not “flowery” and unsearchable! Your blog name is your biggest search term!
A good example of a catchy, but searchable blog name would be my friend over at The Crochet Wizard! It’s a cute name, and you can tell she blogs about crochet! Perfect!
-DON’T MAKE IT SUPER NARROW
One thing that always tripped me up when picking a good blog name, was the fear that I’d make it so specific that it’d be impossible to blog about anything else! You want to make it a bit broad, so you can allow room for growth and topic changes!
For example, let’s say you blogged about fashion and your blog name was “The Shoe Hoarder”, It cute and catchy, but it’s a bit narrow!
Now you look like you only blog about shoes! Sure, you could still expand to other fashion topics if you wanted to but another blog name might fit a little better!
-DON’T USE SPECIAL CHARACTERS
Another thing to remember when picking a good blog name is not to use any special characters.
I know it seems a bit funny and you may want to use hyphens to separate words in your URL. But honestly how many websites have you seen that do that? A URL is usually a few words mashed together, no spaces.
Think about it this way, just because your URL doesn’t have spaces, doesn’t mean you have to market your blog that way. For example, I never tell people I’m the owner of “businesswomenthrive”. I’m the owner of “Business Women Thrive”.
Some people also suggest that you stay away from numbers because it looks unprofessional, and I agree to an extent. But my last blog had “03” at the end of the name and I never had any problems with it!
When I advertised it on social media, I generally took the “03” off (But kept it at the end of the link of course!) and it worked just fine for me!
3. USING YOUR NAME
Then there’s the huge debate- do you use your real name or not? There are pros and cons to this, which I’ll go over.
CONS
- Your name is not very searchable
Unless you’ve been blogging before and this is your second blog, chances are no one knows who you are just yet. So picking a blog with your name isn’t very searchable.
There are people who have pulled it off, however, such as melyssagriffin.com . I’m not entirely sure if this is her first blog or not, but she has become so known in the blogging community that her name alone is a search term.
When you first start out though, that won’t be the case. So consider that when deciding!
- No privacy
If you choose to use your first and last name in your blog URL, you kinda ruin your own privacy.
So, for example, I choose to only share my first name, Sarah. Do you know how many Sarah’s there are in the world? Tons. I’ve met so many in my life.
People can’t do much with a first name. But you have no idea what people can do with your first and last name laid out for them, especially if you include a photo of yourself!
Of course, I’m sure it wouldn’t be very hard to find my last name since I also share photos of myself. But I’m at least going to make it one step harder for them!
PROS
- It’s super personal (A pro and con)
Creating a blog and a brand usually does very well the more personable you get, and the better you connect with your audience!
So, if you share your name in your blog URL that’s the first step to creating a very personal brand if that is what you’re going for. Like I mentioned above, however, it could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it!
- The domain is less likely to be taken
This option can honestly differ, depending on how common of a name you have (again, thousands of Sarah’s in the world!). But if you have a very unique name, chances are it won’t be taken when you go to buy your domain, so you won’t have to think very hard!
- You can write about anything you want
With your personal name as a blog name, you open yourself up to write about any topic under the sun! Basically, you have no limits to what you can write about. Which can be another pro and con honestly!
Check out this post here to find out why having a broad niche (or none at all) can actually do more harm than good!
Recommended: How to Pick the Perfect Blogging Niche!
4. IS YOUR BLOG NAME AVAILABLE?
The sad thing about blogging, is a lot of people are doing it! Which means there’s almost nothing original on the internet anymore! So there is a chance that someone could already have the awesome domain name that you’ve just thought of!
So, before you get too attached to the name, make sure that it’s available first! There are a few ways you should do this.
-USE A DOMAIN CHECKER
There are a ton of domain checkers out there, but the one I most recommend is Namecheap. If the name you wanted is taken, NameCheap will give you other alternatives that you can try instead! Score!
-SEARCH AROUND GOOGLE
There may not be a blog with the name you choose, but there are tons of other products out there that might have similar names to what you’ve chosen.
It might be impossible to come up with a name that is 100% original nowadays. But, there may be some products out there you won’t want your blog potentially mixed up or associated with!
And there you have it! 4 tips for picking a good blogging name!
What’s the story behind your blog name? How did you come up with it, or how do you plan to come up with it? Let me know in the comments below!
These are fantastic tips. Great article and you have covered everything!
I agree with using your own name can be a miss, especially if you want to separate your personal life and business.
Thank you for sharing.
Alyssa
Thanks!
And yes, using your own name is a trade-off. I like the idea because it creates more freedom of topics to write on, but it’s not very private!