How to Choose Blog Name that can Emerge as a Brand [Dos & Don’ts included]

Learn how to Choose Blog Name that can Emerge as a Brand. An ultimate guide to come up with a perfect blog name that stands out.

Are you starting an online blogging business? Before you launch your online business, deciding upon the blog name for your blog is going to be one of the most important tasks out there. However, there is no denying the fact that choosing the right blog name can be quite challenging, especially when you are looking for a perfect blog name in long-run.

What I mean by long-run is that you’re serious enough about that blog and committed for blog’s future growth and success.

Getting the right name for your blog may determine the overall success of your online business. The best blog names out there tend to be unique, eye-catchy, and relevant to the content on the site.

Once you have decided the blog name for your blog, the chances are that you are going to have it for the rest of the life of the blog. This is because when you consider changing the blog name, you will be basically starting a new blog all over again.

Certainly, a blog name can be helpful in building your brand. When the blog name of your blog resonates purpose of the blog, it helps to reinforce the brand and making it easier for the visitors to remember and return to your blog.

Blog Name Categories

Before we go into the details of coming up with a perfect domain name, let’s check out blog name categories. Some of the popular blog name categories include:

I. Branded Blog Names

Many blog owners prefer branded blog name for their blog. A branded blog name rarely tells about the subject and purpose of the blog.

For example – QuickSprout.com, is a digital marketing blog by Neil Patel. Who would have thought that a marketing blog can be named after Sprout, right!

Another good example of a branded blog name is – Labnol.org, is a technology blog by Amit Agarwal.

Branded names might help to promote the blog effectively because of their uniqueness. But on contrary, branded names do not get the benefit of blog topic keyword inclusion. Hence no advantage of search query match.

When it comes to choosing a branded name as the blog name, though is it not necessary that your branded blog name must reflect your blog topic or subject. But you should at least try making distant resonance between blog name and its subject/topic.

Like Quick Sprout – is a blog that talks about faster results in digital marketing and growth-hacking strategies. I’m sure that you get the point I am trying to make here.

II. Generic Blog Names

A Generic Blog Name indicates the subject/topic of the blog. These names include the main keyword of blog topic or niche. The inclusion of main keyword in the blog name (hence in domain name) makes them search engine friendly.

For example, TrulyBlogger.com – Start your Blogging journey with us, is a blog about bloggers and blogging.

Another example – TrumpExcel.com by Sumit Bansal, is a blog to learn MicroSoft Excel.

While choosing a generic name for your blog, it is important to keep in mind that the blog name should be unique, eye-catchy, and relevant to the blog topic or niche.

III. Portmanteau Names

Portmanteau (pronounced port’man-tow) means – a new word formed by blending two other words and combining their meanings.

For instance, the term ‘motel’ comes from the combination of terms ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’. Other examples include: smog = smoke + fog, brunch = breakfast + lunch etc.

For example, TechNumero.com – Unfolding Technologies (a technology blog) is the combination of Technology and Numero (which means ‘number’ in the Italian language).

You can utilize this idea to come up with a perfect blog name for your next blog. When it comes to using a portmanteau as your blog name, you should keep in mind that your blog name is easy to type & spell and does not sound weird.

How to Choose Blog Name that Stands Out

Once you are done with deciding the blog name category, next you should keep in the following tips which will certainly help you to avoid mistakes people make while choosing a blog name.

Keep in Mind the Target Audience

While choosing the perfect blog name, it is vital to keep the target audience or the blog niche in your mind. When you know your target audience well, it will help you in coming up with a suitable name. Depending on the expectations and preferences of the target audience, choose a relevant blog name.

Go for Brand-able Name

Go for a name that makes it easier for you to ensure effective branding. Sometimes becoming a brand has nothing to do with Branded name or Generic name.

For example, CopyBlogger.com is a generic name but it became popular and emerged as a brand. Another example of a generic name becoming a brand is – SmartPassiveIncome.com by Pat Flynn.

Examples of branded blog names gained huge popularity are – QuickSprout.com, Labnol.org

Proper branding of your blog is an important task for the success of your blog. Therefore you should go for a brand-able blog name.

Choose a Name that is Easy to Spell and Type

This one is no brainer, right!

Your blog name should be easy spell and type. If it is not so, you have to make extra efforts every time you tell someone about your blog. And many times that extra effort is far more than you expect.

Your ultimate aim should be to choose blog name that turns out user-friendly for the end users. Therefore, the blog name that you choose must be simple, easy-to-read, and easy-to-remember for the end readers.

Keep it Concise and Catchy

Usually, you should limit the blog name to around one to three words. Anything longer than that would be difficult to remember, and can thus, lose its overall catchiness.

All the popular companies like – Google, Yahoo, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Facebook and PayPal used either one word or two words name.

Make sure that the blog name that you finalize is a catchy phrase instead of being a full sentence.

For example – TravelAdventuresByJohnMiller.com is neither catchy nor concise. Therefore you should stay away from such blog names.

Your ultimate goal with a blog name is to allow the readers to find your blog on the Internet. A short, concise, and catchy blog name will help you with the same.

Try Another Language

When you are looking forward to standing out in the saturated online world, coming up with an abstract phrase or term in a language other than English can serve to be a great way in drawing the attention of the target audience.

The Internet is so crowded that you can hardly find one-word domain with .com available to register. Therefore, using words from other languages can also increase the chances of availability of domain name. And can be helpful to choose blog name that fit your blog topic (niche).

A simple online language translator like the Google Translate can help you start off easily. When you are going for selecting a different language for your blog name, you can consider selecting something shorter with fewer syllables. This will help in making the blog name simple and easy to pronounce.

Choose the Right Domain Extension

Another important step while selecting a perfect blog name is to pick the right domain extension – also referred to as the TLD (Top Level Domain).

A wide number of domain extensions or TLDs are available but .COM is the most popular among them all. Though there could be several reasons of popularity of .com TLD the best I can put for you here is that many SEO experts believe that .COM extension is preferred by Search Engines as well.

In fact, .COM has become the synonym of internet business. Didn’t you hear phrases like – DOT COM industry or DOT COM Entrepreneurs.

However, if you are looking for a domain name for some county specific blog or niche project which require TLD other than .COM and that can benefit your blog in some aspect (SEO, brand-ability etc.) then you can choose blog name with other TLDs as well.

Using the Personal Name

Before choosing your personal name as the blog name, you might consider re-thinking about your decision. It might make sense choosing the personal name as the blog name in case you are running a sole trader business or a writer.

Another scenario where you might use you person name as blog name is that – you have already earned a good reputation in your industry by your previous work – just like Neil Patel did with his previous blogs and companies and then he started a blog with his own name – NeilPatel.com

Keyword-rich Names are Good or Bad

Think about the main topic/subject that you will write on your blog, and then search for the perfect blog name on a Blog Name Generator based on the main topic or niche. This helps in boosting the overall visibility of your blog for your main keyword/blog topic.

Don’t overdo keyword inclusion in blog name unless you sure about the purpose of doing it.

Avoid Too Specific Blog Name

Don’t pick too specific blog name unless you are planning a micro-niche blog. When you have a specific niche (blog topic) in your mind, you should not make the mistake of choosing a name that turns out to be too narrow or specific in the given niche.

For instance, you wish to start a blog with its target audience in India. However, later, you realized that India is a very small niche. Therefore, you should go for choosing a broad name for your blog.

Avoid Numbers or Special Characters

Numbers or special characters are better off than the blog names. Moreover, you should avoid making use of the hyphens. While you might include numbers in some special cases, the utilization of the special characters must be avoided at all costs. Always choose blog name without any number or special characters as far as possible.

Avoid Brand Names and Trademarks

For staying out of the legal issues involved in violating the copyrights and trademark rules, you should refrain from using the trademarks and brand names of others.

8 Free Tools for Coming Up with a Perfect Blog Name

You can use the following free tools (Name Generators, Thesaurus etc.) to come up with the right domain name. These tools will help you choose blog name that suits your blog niche.

NameMesh

NameMesh is a free domain name generator. It let you search a domain name by keyword. For example – when you entered ‘health’ it shows domains available with common TLDs, new modern TLDs, a short domain like heal.th, premium domains and mixed domain.

Dot-o-mator

Dotomator is another good domain name generator tool that generates domain names based on input for the beginning word (or group) and ending word (group) and shows available domains.

Namech_k

Namechk is another good tool which tells you available domains with different TLDs for a keyword. It also shows the availability of username (for the entered keyword) on various websites, social media platforms etc.

Wordoid

Wordoid is a tool which generates made-up words at the press of a button, isn’t that cool? And as these names are made-up names which certainly increase the chance of availability of domain name with your desired TLD.

NameStation

NameStation generates domain names based on the input word or phrase. You can search domain names by Keyword, Append Keywords, Compound Words, Suggestive Names, Related Words, Business Names and Hand-picked Names etc.

Thesaurus

You might have thought of using the thesaurus for coming up a blog name. Thesaurus.com is the web version of your old school thesaurus. You can use this to generate synonyms of your keyword to find a good blog name.

Panabee

Panabee also a domain name generator. It can generate domain name by adding words before or after the main word. Also, it shows the availability of the generated domain names.

NameBoy

NameBoy is a name generator tool that generates hundreds of name by prefixing and suffixing different words to your entered keyword.

Conclusion

By now, you must be aware of the fact that choosing the right blog name is the most important step in setting up your blog. Be patient, use the above-mentioned tips to choose blog name and take time while analyzing the best blog name for your blog.

If you like this article, do share it with your colleagues, friends, and peers so that they can benefit as well.

Cheers!