One important thing to remember in your blog is ease of use. If something is too confusing to understand at first-glance the user will just move on, and you’ve just lost a potential viewer.

The first of such things to simplify is your domain name. If someone wants to tell their friend about your amazing blog would it be easier for them to remember, “Just go to http://www.thebestblogintheworld6129″ or “Just go to www.blog-tutor.com?”

Other than being easy to remember and communicate your domain name should contain something relevant to your blog. When sifting through a list of google results, people tend to become interested in URL’s or uninterested. Capitalize on the portion of people that would be interested in your blog by having your domain name relate to the niche (category of your content) of your blog.

You can incorporate your niche into your domain name in a variety of ways. For example, if you have a blog about ipods then you would probably want the word ipod in your domain name. If you have a blog about technology in general try to use keywords pertaining to that category. Engadget, a blog about technology, used the keyword gadget. Looking at my blog, I want to help other people create and optimize their blogs so I named it blog-tutor. Tutor was a keyword I came up with when thinking of teaching and help, while the “blog” in my domain name pertained to my content.

Another thing you need to think about is availability and price. In a perfect world, someone would have a great idea for a domain name, go buy it, and enjoy his new domain. Sadly in our world many time those perfect original ideas we’ve come up with are already taken. This can either be due to someone having had the idea before and buying the domain, or “the scum of the net,” as I like to call them, who buy 100’s of domain names so they can sell them for jacked up prices to people later. Just as an interesting side-note, the person who owned the domain iphone.com had registered the site back in 1995 and was planning to open his own online cellphone shop. Earlier this year apple bought the domain from him for 1 million dollars. And while normally domains never reach a fraction of that price, it was Apple, and when you have that much money to throw around, you do what you want.

Since many beginners read this blog, I thought it might be helpful to post links to some websites used to find sites names. This site for example finds if the domain name has been taken or not for each of the more-popular extensions. Generally the standard of the internet has become .com and as such many people will automaticaly assume .com if they can’t remember an address. While there have been successful blogs using other extensions like .net, .fz, .de ect. it is more beneficial to have a .com domain. Instantdomainsearch, which I linked to earlier, allows you to check the availability of your domain name for each extension. After clicking on the extension you want a list of vendors will be brought up. Generally there will be about 6 providers that can sell you that name. Usually go for the cheapest one, but try to stick to well known brands such as: Yahoo, GoDaddy, Registrar, ect. Be wary of agreements that domain sellers make you do, some of them restrict your use of the domain. For example I bought my domain from Yahoo because they offered to sell it for $1.99 for first-time customers but I cannot transfer the domain to my host (bluehost) for another 60 days.

In the end, you can have your name be anything you want and still be successful, however it is more beneficial to have:

1. Easy to remember domain name
2. A domain name pertaining to your chosen niche
3. A common extension such as .com or .net

Feel free to post any questions you have in the comments section or contact me directly via e-mail at: Niklas@theKunkels.com