We’ve created a special page that explains domain names to help you out, so please read it in conjunction with this page.

Think about your domain name choice from the beginning

It’s worth thinking about your domain name right at the beginning, before you start to blog as your domain name will be both the address potential visitors will you use to find you, as well as the name of the brand you purposely or inadvertently will be creating.

Register your name before you start blogging

Even if you decide to start off with a hosted blog like Blogger and may not choose to use your domain name - it’s good to have it there in case you want to in the future (and you can forward or map it to your blog - more later in this series).

You do not want to build a blog (eg myfabulousconcept.blogspot.com or mygreatbrand.typepad.com) and create a great brand around the name (”myfabulous concept”/”mygreatbrand”) and have someone else register the domain name (www.myfabulousconcept.com / www.mygreatbrand.com because you didn’t. 

Choosing a domain name

If you have a company name or you trade under your own name then you should definitely make sure that you own these as domains as soon as possible.

If not, then it pays to carefully consider the purpose and goal of your blog/website before registering your domain name. You may either want to build a blog around a unique brand or you may want to tap into generic keywords (to find out more about keywords, Day 2 of the Thirty Day Challenge is a good place to start). Amazon.com is an example of a domain name that is a unique brand (the Amazon has nothing to do with a bookstore - it’s just a really really big river) while www.celebrity-babies.com is an example of a keyword domain - it perfectly describes the subject matter of the website (babies of celebrities).

Both have their pros and cons. Keyword domain names have an initial advantage because they have instant consumer recognition of their subject matter and it can help search engine optimisation (making search engines rank your site better) in the short term. But unique brands can be more powerful longer term if they do attract an audience as they can differentiate your site better from competitors and prevent confusion with other keyword sites. Unique brands are easier to trademark and receive protection.

A service like Nameboy can help you find available names based on keywords relevant to you.

As part of this series, we will be looking over blogging goals and purposes over the next couple of weeks so if you’re uncertain about a domain name to choose, then it may be worth letting the ideas simmer for a while.

This is part of our super series on How to Blog. Subscribe to our Newsletter for some special surprise How to Blog stuff over the course of the lessons.