You’ve decided what your blog is about and you’ve written your blog’s mission statement.  Now it’s time for the fun part – reserving a domain name (also called website name) for your blog.  A domain name is the address of your website on the World Wide Web.  It’s how users will find your website.  For example, digitalsapien.com is the domain name for this website. 
“Reserving a domain name” refers to the process of declaring your ownership of a website domain name through a domain registrar such as 1&1 Internet or www.GoDaddy.com .  It’s actually a relatively simple and cheap ($7 – $15) process to reserve your own domain name depending on the domain registrar and top-level domain (TLD) name you select (we’ll discuss TLDs later).  For the lowest affordable rates, we strongly recommend using 1&1 Internet or www.GoDaddy.com to register your domain.

Why is picking the right domain name for your blog important?

Not only does a domain name tell users how to access your blog, but a domain name give your website an identity and helps you to establish a brand on the Web.  Your domain name will have an impact on your blog’s search engine optimization strategy, the implications of which we will discuss later.  Lastly, a competitive domain name can have value.  It’s not uncommon to hear domain names being sold at auction for $5000.  So it’s in your best interest to spend a little time thinking about the domain name for your blog.

What is a top-level domain name?

Digitalsapien.com is the domain name of this website.  The “.com” in this example is referred to as the “top-level domain” (TLD).  Common top-level domain names include .com, .net, .us, .org, .info, .biz, .name.  Please note: that yourwebsite.com and yourwebsite.org are two completely different website names and will require two different registrations.

Top-level domain names can give some indication about who owns the website or what the site is about.  Here are some common TLDs for blogs and their traditional usage.

You will have to select both a combination of a domain name and a top-level domain name for your website.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t be.  You’re already half way through your crash course in domain name registration for blogs.

Blog domain name ideas

There are many pointers to go about selecting a domain name for your website.  Here are a few of the most popular ways:

Here are some more tips for selecting a domain name:

• Avoid using dashes in your domain name.  For example, you should reserve financeblog.com over finance-blog.com when possible.  This is a preference, not a hard and fast rule.
• Avoid registering domains that are more than 5 words long as they tend to be less memorable to users.  For example, thisdomainiswaytoolengthy.com isn’t the best choice.
• Use keywords in your domain name when possible.
• Registering a .biz top-level domain name is not recommended.
• Big companies are protective of their trademark, so avoid registering domain names that sound like another companies website name.  For example, do not register ebayy.com.

Search engine optimization (SEO) considerations for domain name selection

  Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo are able to read the keywords in website domain names.  Many use keywords in domain names in order to rank websites relevant to a user’s search.  Search engines also use domain names to as cues to understand the topic of the site.  Again, this helps them to present better results to their searchers.  Therefore, incorporating keywords into your domain name can benefit your search engine rankings, help you to attract people who are interested in your blog topic, as well as your search engine referred traffic.

Let’s say a person goes to Google and searches for “blogs about cars” and there are two (there are really millions, but for this example we will say two) possible websites to return as the top result.  The domain for one website is carblogs.com and the other potential website is airportcarrentals.com – both competing for the #1 position on Google.  All things being equal otherwise, carblogs.com is more likely to be in the #1 position than airportcarrentals.com because the keywords in it’s domain more closely mirrors the user’s search query.

Go ahead and reserve a blog domain name!

Take a few minutes and generate a list of possible domain names for your blog.  Done?  Good!  Now use the domain availability tool below to see if the domain names on your list are available.  Don’t get discouraged if the domain name for your blog has already been reserved, there’s still plenty of really good domain names still left.  Use this super handy tool to register a domain name for your website.

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About author:

Everett Whitehead is an experienced emarketer who specializes in search engine optimization, SEM, and other areas of online marketing. Active in online business since 2002, Everett is privileged to have worked with many well-known brands over his career. If you would like to retain a Boston SEO Consultant or would like an SEO question answered, he can be contacted by clicking here.

All entries by Everett Whitehead

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