The first thing that readers notice when landing on your blog is the blog name. Blog name directly reflects the personality of your blog and your creativity. When starting your blogging journey, choosing a good name is the most important thing.
But wait!
But when choosing a good blog name, it’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis wherein, no matter how hard you analyze you won’t be able to decide. I can easily relate to this.
In those times, you need to remember that your audience are not obsessive to your blog name as you do. You need to trust your intuition, and move forward with faith.
Always set the blog name same as that of the domain. When going with domains, go with .com or .co TLDs as they are easy to remember.
This is particularly important. So in this post, wherever I use the term domain name it also refers to the blog name.
While choosing a blog or domain name you have four options:
- Choosing blog names with a target-keyword in it.
- Choosing blog name with a keyword and which is brandable.
- Choosing a blog name that is completely brandable.
- A blog name with your name in it, like Akshay’s blog.
I would choose a brandable name having a keyword in the domain. This gives you the benefit of both keyword and brand to your blog. In other words, it will give you an SEO boost and as well as a catchy name (brand name) for your blog.
Keyword-rich vs brandable name
Having keywords in the domain name was very important 3-4 years ago.
Now SEO has changed a lot. Having the keyword of your niche in your domain name matters less.
You need to now have blog/domain name that’s brandable and memorable. Authority sites tend to have brandable domains.
The moment the users come across a site like bestfoldabletreadmills.com, just imagine what would be their experience?
Wew.
It’s not 2010, guys.
Readers now know whom to trust and why.
They can easily make out the difference between a shallow affiliate niche site and an authority one.
Rather than going fully brandable like “Google” and “Twitter”, you can go with something like “TreadmillAuthority” or like “FitnessHacker” if you wish.
This makes your domain/blog name more inclined towards the niche and carries some topical relevancy in the eyes of Google.
For me a blog name that is partially keyword-rich and brandable is the way to go.
People still think that having a keyword in the domain name is an SEO advantage.
That’s not true.
You can still rank a domain with no keyword in it at all. It’s the relevancy of the content you publish in the domain that matters. Not the usage of relevant keywords in the domain.
Even if your domain has keyword in it and you publish irrelevant content, you won’t receive any search traffic on your site.
Does your blog name pass radio test?
Make sure the blog/domain name you choose pass the radio/telephone test.
Suppose say your blog is promoted in a radio, do the listeners get the exact blog name without the host spelling it?
This is not all about radio.
If you are promoting your blog is any podcasts, it should be easily comprehensible by the listeners. This is how the word-of-mouth promotion gains its effectiveness.
Example, last year SumoMe changed their name to Sumo. People were pronouncing the name SumoMe wrong.
So, they spent $1.5 Million to get Sumo.com domain name. Learn why?
Consider my case.
Previously this blog BloggingX, was called GoBloggingTips. It was long, and difficult to pronounce and not brandable. Once I realized the branding will be one of the top SEO factors, I invested in rebranding my domain name. I investing a good premium price in betting BloggingX.com
Some people say that brand name doesn’t matter, it’s the value you offer that matters. I would agree with this, but brand name defines the frame in which people perceive your content.
What about domain under your name?
As far as personal branding is considered, naming your blog as “Your name”, helps a lot. Because it’s your name, you will hardly rebrand yourself!
People trust blogs which have the author name in its title or domain. They consider those blogs as having high-quality content.
But here’s the catch.
I run a blog on blogging here at BloggingX. I’m not running this site at AkshayHallur.com.
Because, blogging is not the only thing my personality stands for. I may also step into the some other space in the future along with blogging in the future.
I would not like to tie my personal site to only blogging as I may venture into other fields in the future as well.
It all boils down to your personal choice.
For example, Neil Patel grew NeilPatel.com. Now his blog is popular than any of his other blogs.
If your name too long like Gary Vaynerchuk? Shorten it.
Gary’s site goes with GaryVee and his agency site name is VaynerMedia!
If you’re starting your blog for growing your SaaS business, personal branding may not be for you. Because, if you have a strong personal brand attached to your SaaS application, it may be harder for you to sell it in the future.
Whereas, if you’re in training, consulting or agency business it makes sense for you to personal branding route.
Try to include verbs in your blog name
Including verbs in blog name acts as a call to action to your readers. It’s simply creative and effective.
The words you use should create the specific image or an imagination in your reader’s mind, only then it causes the brand memorability.
Like Go, Shout, Jump, Think, Scratch.
The verbs are simply engaging and sparkles some actions in your readers’ mind. When people have something to visualize when they com across your blog, your brand will be memorable to them.
Know your audience
Are they coming to your blog to learn something specific?
Then include some words in your blog name that describes what your blog content is about.
If most of your target audience are millennials, then try to include some cool words that appeal to them. Like geek, nerd, hustle, etc.
Your blog name should shout out to your audience like, “Hey, this is the blog, which you’re looking for!”.
Are you getting it?
Your blog name should be relevant to the audience you are trying to cater for. It should reflect the USP of your blog.
The moment your blog name
Look at your competitor blog names
If you are looking to find name for your blog, then it may mean you are into a new niche.
In such cases, you need to look at what other people are doing in the niche.
You’ll get to know about some of the jargon words that other bloggers in your niche use to create a deeper connect with the audience.
If a blog name is working good for other people in your niche, it should work great for your blog too.
Just get some inspiration out of your competitors’ blog names.
Don’t impersonate or don’t look similar. It hurts your rep in the long run.
Are you not getting domain name you want?
Open Thesaurus and search for synonyms.
Prepare a list of core keywords
Before even starting to research your blog name, first you need to come with some of the words that are central to your niche idea.
These words would be verbs, abbreviations, phrases, related to your niche.
For example, if you consider fitness, you may consider the below words.
| Muscle | Body | Workout/workouts |
| Strong/Strength | Weight | Hustle |
| Lift | Physique | Train/Trainer |
| Gain/Gains | Bulk/Lean | Buff |
You can find the core keywords related to the niche you are working on by Googling for – “niche terms” or “niche terminology”.
Once you have the initial set of words, you can either expand it or use the tools I listed below to research the domain names.
Mix ‘n match
Now you have a list of your niche related terms, it’s time to mix and match them and find available domain names.
Here we will be using a tool called Dotomator, it helps you easily check the availability of domain names that are a combination of words you provide the tool.
As you can see, I’ve just entered some beginning and ending words.
This tool already provided me dozens of available domain name ideas for me to get started.
You can also choose among the categories of preloaded words that come with the tool using the dropdown as you can see in the screenshot.
If you ask me, the domain names like GainAddict and LiftBeast are the best ones to go with in no particular order.
Untapped reservoir of brandable names
Add suffixes like –ify, -matic, -ckr, -erify, -cy, -icious, -ity, -ous. Consider brands like Shopify, Spotify, so on. You can refer this Wikipedia Latin Suffixes section for more ideas.
You can use a tool called NameMesh, that helps you check the domain name availability for the brandable suffixes.
If you are in the fitness niche you can go with names like fittify, fitmatic, fitnessmatic, fitnitty, strongify, leanmatic, so on…
If the blog name can be easily confused between homophones, like Byte vs Bite, you may need to buy both the domain names and redirect them to the main site.
By this, you have your root keyword and as well as the brand flavor in your name.
Intentional typos
You may vomit vowels and create brand – the domain names of Tumblr and Flickr are perfect examples.
In this case people may easily type Flickr as Flicker. So, the folks at Flickr has also bought Flicker.com (below screenshot).
Or, you can consider replacing the key-consonants like replacing – “c” with “k”, so on.
One classic example is of Neville Medhora’s Kopywriting Kourse, where he replaced “c” with “k”.
If your researched name contains words that end with “y” as in creativity – make it “creativiti”.
If it ends with plural as in bloggers – make it “bloggerz”.
Include rhyming words
Why songs are attractive? Because, rhymes are what ruling the music industry. This is why songs keep on humming in your brain for a long time.
How about implementing the same strategy in choosing blog or domain names?
You got me.
If you need a perfect rhyme word search engine, my answer is RhymeZone. The best bet is to use end Rhymes. Which are very effective.
Perfectly suitable rhymes for the word “blogging” are boggling, logging. These two words are great rhymes for the word blogging, as far as blog name is considered.
Here are some of the rhyming blog names that I have brainstormed.
BogglingBlogging, BloggingTalking, MindBogglingBlogging, etc.
When it comes to fitness, you can do with domains like FitGrit, FitLit, etc.
Tap the creative side of your brain, man!
Tools for generating great blog name ideas
- LeanDomainSearch (I use it all the time)
- NameMesh
- Wordoid
- Nameboy
- Panabee (for brandable)
- Wordhippo (Killer if used properly)
- Visual Thesaurus! (Visualize the linked words and synonyms)
These tools help you find great blog name ideas.
LeanDomainSearch is the tool I use a lot to find domain name ideas. It’s a tool by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.
After choosing an effective blog name, it’s equally important to know the availability of the domain name.
In order to do that, there is an instant tool called InstantDomainSearch.
Check for trademarks
If you don’t want to get sued for registering a domain name or starting a brand with a word that is trademarked, you need to pay attention to the trademark issues beforehand.
Before registering any domain name, head over to the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS), and select Basic Word Mark Search (New User).
Rather than risking your brand or facing the pain of rebranding in the future, I strongly suggest you take a look at the trademark database to make sure everything’s fine.
For example, “WordPress” is a trademark term – so you are not allowed to use the term in the domain name.
Bottomline
Hope this blog post has helped you come up with some creative blog name ideas.
Once you master the art of brainstorming, you can put a plethora of blog name ideas in front of you.
Whatever your blog name is. It matters less than that of quality content. Focus on creating quality content. Your content is the one that brings in value for your blog name.
No matter how brandable your blog name
If you’re really benefited by this blog post, do comment and share.
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