Blogging Mistakes: 10 “Don’ts” for Choosing a Domain Name

Blogging Mistakes: 10 “Don’ts” for Choosing a Domain Name

Last week I shared my Unsuccessful Blogger’s Income Report and promised I would begin sharing with you some tips on mistakes I have made along the way and also ways to improve traffic and income from your blog as I grow as well.

choosing a domain name

Because some of you might not yet be blogging but considering starting a blog I thought I would start at the very beginning with advice on choosing a domain name. Unfortunately, I can be pretty impulsive at times. Once I decided to start a blog I thought I needed to rush into it and get it up and running as quickly as possible. I typed domain name after domain name until I found one that wasn’t taken without really putting a lot of thought process behind it. That was probably my first mistake. So here are my tips on choosing a domain name so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.

  1. Don’t pick a domain name that won’t be relevant to you or your life in five years. Consider what your blog will be about, not just now but five years from now. If you are a new mom and plan on blogging about your pregnancy and newborn and want to name your blog NewMomofOne.com you might regret that decision several kids later. Try to imagine how you will want your blog to evolve over the years and what kind of topics you would want to include.
  2. Don’t settle for a crummy suffix. If you think of a great name but find that the .com and .net version of it is already taken, don’t be stubborn about it and take another version of it anyways. Just think of a different name.
  3. Don’t make it too long, people won’t remember.
  4. Don’t go with a cutesie spelling on something, spell it the way people would think to spell it-correctly.
  5. Don’t buy a domain name really similar to another. Research domain names close to what you want to choose. If it is really, really close, find something else. Also research domain names that users might land at if they misspell or mistype your domain name.
  6. Don’t get frustrated or rushed into choosing something. If you run out of ideas then give it some more thought, don’t just pick something that happens to be available that you don’t really like.
  7. Don’t use hyphens or other symbols in your domain name
  8. Don’t choose a domain name that is different from your business name. Customers will remember one or the other and it also makes your brand less cohesive.
  9. Don’t forget that there is no capitalization in domain names. Because of this when all of your words run together you need to be careful of consonants that fall back to back or vowels that run back to back. When it is all mushed together it should still be easy for people to see and realize immediately what it says.
  10. Don’t immediately give up if you have the idea for a perfect domain name but it is taken. The person who currently owns it may be interested in selling it to you.

After a lot of thought and research when you are ready to pick your domain name head on over to GoDaddy, they have great deals on domain names.

Alaina Forbes

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