You know what the toughest decision is for wannabe bloggers?
Choosing what to call their blog. Their blog’s name.
Do you want to start a blog too but don’t know what to name it? What to call it so it becomes a brand in future?
Well, guess what, you’re not alone. There are thousands of people like you who have an idea – They know how they’ll write content, how they’ll design their blog but don’t know what to name it.
Some use their own name, some use their business name and some use their product name as their blog’s name. There are people who name it on random words because they like it!
So, what should you do?
How do you choose a name which you won’t regret afterwards?
That’s what this guide will answer.
In this guide, I’ll help you decide a name for your new blog.
The conventional way to find a name is to brainstorm.
The unconventional way (the way we are going to learn here) is to mix brainstorming with practical strategies, tools and ideas.
Let’s do this.
The Contents
A quick reminder before you name your blog…
Firstly… you need to pick your niche.
A niche is a particular topic on which you’ll write blog posts, what your blog going to be about. Finding a niche is extremely important and you should definitely not skip this.
We have a detailed post on how to find a niche for your blog. It breaks down the whole process of finding niche ideas and extracting the one niche that you feel passionate about and can make money from.
So before proceeding further, I would highly recommend you to find your niche first (if you haven’t yet). It will fasten and probably make it easier for you to come up with a name for your blog.
It’s true that many of the beginners never really understand what significance a name has on their blog.
Sure a name doesn’t guarantee the success of any business.
But one bad name would definitely guarantee a loss of business opportunities… Like these businesses.
The name you choose now, may become a brand in future, so you have to be very careful and selective when you name your blog. It’s not just about you, its about your business.
Let’s start with the simplest way to find a good name – Brainstorming.
After all its brainstorming that lead to the invention of the bulb, the discovery of gravity… So finding a name should be fairly easy by brainstorming.
Right?
Wrong.
Brainstorming will only lead you to gather names you’ve already known, heard somewhere or seen somewhere.
Here are a few strategies that’ll help you brainstorming smartly so you come up with a new and an ideal name for your blog which you won’t want to change afterwards.
Strategy #1 – Identify Your Competitors’ Naming Strategy
Your online competitors are a gem, but only when you use their strategy to outrank and defeat them in their own game.
Identify who are your competitors. You can do this with the help of a tool called SEMrush.
Go to SEMrush tool and type in your niche keyword. For example, if your niche is fitness, type in fitness.
In a moment SEMrush will show you all your organic competitors are. There domain name, keywords, and top pages.
Now go through all your competitors’ website and note down their brand names on a paper or save it in Google Docs.
You don’t have to copy their names. You have to find what’s common between them.
For our example keyword fitness, this is the result:
Notice how most of the top blogs are using fitness and health in their domain and blog title.
It would we wise if you too choose to have a term like fitness, health, fit, body or some other related words in your domain as well. Just try to keep it under 15 characters.
Strategy #2 – Use Blog Name Generators
Blog name generators are awesome tools using which you can find hundreds of new names in seconds.
Some good name generators are:
- NameMesh
- NameSmith
- PANABEE
- Shopify Business Name Generator
- BrandRoot
The best part about these name generators is ease of use. You have to go to any of the tools enter your niche keyword, or any idea that you have and hundreds of names get generated for you to choose from.
Now I need you to know that you are using an AI – the artificial intelligence will show you what it’s meant to show everyone which means it’s not personalised.
You have to be selective and careful while you choose your blog’s name. You have to use some common sense and customize a few letters or may a word in the names that you see. Don’t just copy/paste up what you see.
Strategy #3 – Mind Map Your Ideas
Before I begin working on any project, I create a visual mind map. It makes everything streamlined and easy to track progress. Similarly, it also helps you create a bunch of name ideas connecting to one particular seed idea.
Mind mapping helps you become more creative. It will help you decide a name that’s strategically created to match your niche and your audience.
The best part – you’ll discover a new strategy to create almost any plan visually which will help you in future. It will help you see names and concepts with a new perspective.
Take a pen and a piece of paper and write. Write down every name that you can think of and connect them to one another if they have a similar context.
In the end, you’ll have several names that resonate your passion and your audience. It is really simple to get started and you can read this guide to get started.
Strategy #4 – Work With Different Languages
How about naming your blog after a word you don’t already know existed? – At least in your language.
I’m talking about a foreign language here, different from what you already know.
For example, You might not know French, but there may be an amazing word in the French language that can define what your blog is about which you may like to use as your blog’s name.
Better yet, you may try experimenting by combining two different words form different languages. Keeping in mind you know their meaning and they form a meaning full word when combined together.
While choosing a different language is fun, you should always choose an easy to pronounce the word and check if the word looks alright in the domain name format.
Strategy #5 – Use Thesaurus
Want to know a secret?
Copywriters don’t have a big vocabulary – they use this awesome tool called Thesaurus.
Thesaurus shows you synonyms and antonyms of any word you type into it. Using this tool you can find a new not-so-common name for your blog.
For example, if you want to blog about law, it can show you synonyms for the law just like this:
There are more than 30 synonyms for the word law!
You can find new keywords using this tool or you can also combine two words to create a new name.
Strategy #6 – Personal Branding (Using Your Own Name)
Yes, you can use your very own name as your blog’ name.
While writing on a blog named after you, you’ll be building a personal brand, one of the best ways to expand businesses.
Your brand will build after you so if in future you planned to start another company, it might not take too long to take off because you would already have your fair share if popularity and brand value.
If you blog under your name, you won’t have to stick to a particular niche and shift in niche won’t be a problem for you. One of the biggest advantages of using your own name is your popularity will bring in more sales and business opportunities.
One of the very successful SEO bloggers Matthew Woodward uses his name for his blog.
Strategy #7 – Hone On Your Target Audience
Understand your target audience first. FInd who they are, what they do and what they want.
This will help you develop a name that can deeply resonate with your audience. So when they see it, they know they will their answers over your blog.
While picking a name, focus on what you want to help them achieve. This will help you choose a proper name for your blog.
Here are a few things you need to avoid while you name your blog:
Numbers in a domain look so bad.
You don’t really want numbers in your domain name. They don’t add any value and makes it harder for people to remember your domain. Because there are thousands of domains available, it really makes sense to choose a comprehensive domain rather than one filled with numbers.
No domain name should be longer than 15 characters. Under 15 characters provides maximum readability and makes it easy to memorise.
You need to avoid a name that is a trademark of a company or else, you’ll get yourself into copyright troubles in future. So, avoid going after domains like Hyatthotelsguide.com and choose something like thehotelsguide.com.
Lastly, as far as a domain extension is concerned, try to find a .COM domain instead of .net, .info etc. The .com is a TLD (top level domain) is more popular, catchy, memorable and has more authority over others.
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