How To Choose A Domain Name For A Blog In 2021?

A domain name is very IMPORTANT!

So, while choosing a domain name for your blog you should be carefully and the selection should be done with good preparation.

This is the first thing you need before starting a blog. Without a domain name, you can’t start your blog. It is the address of your blog that people will search for when they want to visit your blog.

No one gives this importance which creates a problem in the future. Why am I saying this?

Because in future, by any reasons if you will need to change the domain name of your blog or rebrand your blog this will create a big problem for you.

For Example, you have chosen a domain name without planning, and now it is over 10 months and thinking that your domain name is not good.

Maybe, because of one of the following reasons:

• Difficult to type
• Hard to remember
• Not SEO friendly
• Too long
• Not a brandable domain
• Already a big brand is ranking for the same

Reason can be any of them and you are not losing your traffic not getting rank in search engines. People find difficult to type and pronounce your domain which is not good for users experience.

If now you want to change your domain name because it is not a perfect domain name. Then it is not an easy task, there might be chances that you lost everything.

Changing a domain name is a very risky task, you will lose all your traffic and ranking. It is like you are starting from ZERO again if you failed to do this in a proper SEO-friendly way.

Do you know Moz? the best place to learn SEO. Moz.org was SEOMoz.org earlier, and they have changed their domain from SEOMoz.org to MOZ.com.

You might be thinking that it is an easy task because Moz already did that. But let me ask you something…

Do you have the SEO experts as Moz have?

No?

So, will you take this risk?

It will WASH OUT all the hard work that you invested on your blog. But now you need to change the domain name because of any reason I’ve listed above.

I am not saying that you can’t change your domain name in future if you want to… But why to take this risk…

By choosing a domain carefully you can avoid this problem for you in future. The domain name is very very important…

Did you ever imagine that choosing a domain name can be important?

But now you know…

When I was choosing my name I have taken care too much, Because I have to stay with the same name for the long run.

And I am happy that I found the cool name for my blog, What do you think?

Is StayMeOnline a cool domain name?

Well, I know your ANSWER!

Now you understood how important it is to choose a perfect domain name… Right?

But thinking about how to choose a good domain name? What is the best way to choose a domain name? All these questions will be answered in this post.

But before choosing a good domain name for your blog. You must understand the different type of Domain extensions available and what are they for.

Various Domain Extensions

There are three types of domain extensions available when you go to buy a domain name for your blog or website.

TLD(Top-level domain): These are the top-level domains that are the most popular, most used domain extension. Top-level domain extension are .com(most popular), .net, .gov etc.

Country-code top-level domain(ccTLD): These type of domain extensions are used to country-specific websites. It helps in the ranking(a little bit) for the particular country which it is focused on. Like .in for India, .co.uk is for United Kindom, .de for Germany and so on.

Here you can read Google’s 200+ Ranking Factors that decide the rank of a webpage in Google.

Sponsored Top-level domain(sTLD): Sponsered Top-level domain extensions are the specific type or category in the top-level domains. Like .edu is used only for educations websites and .gov is used my governments’ websites.

8 Tips For Choosing A Domain Name For Your Blog

Choosing a perfect domain name for your blog is very IMPORTANT!

But it is not that much tough as it looks like…

You only need to follow these 8 tips listed below to choose a PERFECT domain name.

Here are the best tips to choose a good domain name for your blog that will help you in long-term.

.Com Is Best

.Com is the TLD(top-level domain) extension.

When you got a name of any particular website, let’s say foodkhoj or any other, will you ever try this by inputting it into URL bar with .net .org extensions?

I am sure, Never?

.com is the most famous, most popular and most trusted domain extension on the internet. .com is the first choice of the people who plan to buy a domain name for their website or blog.

So, why are you thinking about any other?

For Example, I am sure you know the Problogger.net(Nice domain:) ) a professional blog by Darren Rowse, He was losing so much traffic to the .com domain name that even without a proper website in place.

Because people were visiting this website using .com extension rather than problogger.net, the Alexa traffic rank of ProBlogger.com started going up. Then He had to purchase ProBlogger.com later just to protect his brand.

The same can happen with you, there are tons of domain extensions but none of them popular as much as .com is.

So, make sure to go with the .com domain, it will be beneficial for you.

Keep Domain Short

According to Gaebler research which shows the length of the domain name for popular websites.

After seeing the above chart, now you can understand that Short domain is better.

Always make sure to keep your domain name short because long domains are hard to remember and hard to type in URL box when you want to visit that website.

A short domain name is easy to write and also easy to remember, you can say in easy words that a short URL is attractive and easy to take in mind in the first encounter.

Choose A Unique Domain Name

Your domain name should be unique, means no one should already exist with the same name.

Make sure to check the name on Google and Social Media sites which you are planning to select. Check whether social media usernames are available for the domain you are going to choose as your blog’s domain name or not.

If someone already has the same name and stands at a good place so you will not get the high ranking and traffic.

Keyword Domain vS Brandable Domain

When you are choosing a domain name for your blog, you have two ways to go. First is, brandable domain name and Second is Keyword domain name.

A brandable domain name like ShoutMeLoud and StayMeOnline, both doesn’t mean anything specific. Both are the brandable domain names, doesn’t contain any keyword in the body.

Choosing a domain with the keyword of your NICHE is good in SEO point of view because it gives a clear idea to the search engine what your blog is all about?

Let’s say, MasterBlogging.com by Ankit Singla, as it is clear that it is focused on

Blogging and the topics related to blogging. A person who wants to read about Cooking will never come on this blog, which is great.

For another example, I am sure you are aware of FoodPanda.in(A food ordering site), as the domain contains food word which means it is about food. Adding keyword in the domain makes easy to understand the niche of the blog for the search engine as well as for users.

Here is an important point, Adding keyword in the domain is a great step but if you want to expand your business in future then you should go for a Brandable name.

Let’s say, Everyone knows that Google is a search engine, Imagine it is Searchengine.com so will Google AdSense look good as SearchEngine Adsense. 🙂

So, it is clear that brandable domain names are ready to expand but a domain name which contains a keyword is not to expand.

Never Use Hyphens

Is it easy to type a domain name which contains Hyphen? for eg. your-domain.com

No one found it easy to enter an URL which has a hyphen. It is not only tough to enter in URL box rather it is also tough to pronounce.

A domain with hyphens also looks spammy and you don’t want to give the wrong impression to potential visitors.

Hyphenated domains are also prone to typos. If you choose a domain name with hyphens because the domain you want is already taken, your users will end up at your competitor’s site if they forget to type hyphens with the URL in the URL bar.

Let’s say, you want to buy a domain name bloggingtips.com but you found that it is already taken. So, don’t buy blogging-tips.com just because the original domain is not available.

If you do so, your visitors will land on your competitors’ websites, if they forget to type hyphen which happens usually.

Should Be Expandable

Your domain should be expandable in future, you might want to cover some more topics in the same NICHE. If your domain is not expandable then you will have to buy a new one and start a new blog.

By expandable domain means, Let’s say you want to write about flowers. You purchased a domain sunflower.com(for example) then you will not able to write about other flowers on the same blog.

In the above case, the domain will not be able to attract visitors who want to read about other followers than the sunflower.

Let’s take another example, if your domain contains “WordPress”, let’s say WordPresstutorials. Then it is clear that you are writing about WordPress tutorials only.

So, visitors who want to read about Blogger or any other blogging platform will not come to your blog.

Avoid Double Letter

Always try to avoid using the double letters in your domain name. Because there are high chances of losing traffic.

Let’s say, you have a domain name WordPresssetup.com. You can see S letter is added three times so there are high chances that your visitors will forget to enter S three times when entering your domain name in their URL box.

It will send them to another website but not on yours, and you will lose the traffic.

Take Quick Action

Imagine, you have selected a good domain name for your blog and added it in your Cart.

But after some days or months, when you ready to buy and come to back to your domain registrar to purchase the domain name you selected for your blog.

Shocked! Because someone else bought it already and you lost the right domain you selected for your blog.

So, once you find the domain name you want to buy, Buy that immediately otherwise you will lose that. Because thousands of domain get registered every single day.

Use Domain Name Generator

There are some domain name generator tools available which you can use to choose a domain name for your blog.

These are the tools that give you domain name suggestions that you can use as your domain for your blog. You only need to enter the NICHE/keyword of your blog and you will get tons of domain name ideas.

Nameboy

Nameboy is the oldest and the best domain name generator you can in choosing a domain name for your blog for free. You only need to enter one or two keywords related to your NICHE and hit Submit button.

After hitting Submit, you will get tons of domain name ideas. The best part which I like about this tool that is, along with the domain name ideas, it will also show you the availability of the domain in Bluehost.

DomainWheel

DomainWheel is another cool domain name generator which you can use to get domain name suggestions for your blog.

This tool also has a domain extension filter option which will help you to see only domains that contain your desired domain extension.

NameMesh

NameMesh is a good domain name generator tool you can use to find a domain for your blog. It also tells you whether a domain is available or not and they will redirect you to buy that domain quickly.

It has a good filter option that allows you to hide the already registered domains, you can choose from various domain registrars and also domain extensions you want to see.

Best Places To Buy A Domain Name For Your Blog

Once you have read all the points that mentioned above and find the best domain for your blog. Here are the best places you can register your domain from.

NameCheap

NameCheap is the cheap domain registrar from where you can buy the domain in cheap prices. I have transferred all my domain to NameCheap to save money on domain renewals.

The best thing which I like about NameCheap that is, they offer FREE Whois protection for the lifetime for which other domain registrars is charging.

Here is why you should buy domains from NameCheap:

• Lifetime FREE Whois Protection
• Free email address
• Free BasicDNS and DNSSEC
• Live Chat Support
• Cheap Domain Transfer

NameCheap always offers AMAZING deals on domain renewal, domain transfer and also on purchasing new domains.

Buy using the below button to get the best available discount on your domain purchase.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a very popular domain registrar company that allows you to register your domain. I have register StayMeOnline and two more domain using GoDaddy.

But I have moved from GoDaddy to NameCheap because of their high renewal prices. And I need to pay for the Whois protection every year which is FREE for the lifetime in NameCheap.

You can buy a cheap domain from GoDaddy but their renewal charges are very HIGH.

GoDaddy always offers HUGE saving discounts for new users. You can check the offer from here…

BigRock

If you are looking for a Cheap domain registrar then Bigrock should be the one in your bucket.

There is one downside because of what I don’t like it, they charge for privacy protection(Whois). But on NameCheap, you will get it free for the lifetime.

Bigrock also offers awesome deals for domains that you can check from here…

Get A Free Domain For Your Blog

FREE Domain?

Yes, you heard this right!

If you didn’t purchase the web hosting already for your blog then It’s awesome because you can get a free domain.

There are many web hosting providers that offer FREE Domain along with their hosting purchase. So, if you buy web hosting from them you will get a domain for FREE.

One of them is BlueHost, Bluehost is a very popular web hosting company and most recommended for WordPress users. They offer a FREE domain along with their website hosting purchase.

Along with the FREE Domain for 1st year, they also offer FREE SSL for your WordPress websites. You can buy Bluehost hosting with a free domain using the below button.

How To Buy A Domain Name For Your Blog?

Now it’s the time to register your domain before someone else register it and you will lose it.

I have listed the best domain registrars above but I personally use NameCheap as my domain registrar and also recommend others.

Grab the domain you selected for your blog using NameCheap to get Lifetime FREE Whois protection.

Step 1: Go to NameCheap by clicking here…

Enter the domain you want to buy for your blog. Make sure to follow all the points I mention in this post for choosing a good domain name for your blog.

Click on the Add To Cart to proceed the domain purchase. Make sure to select the .com domain extension.

Your domain is added to your cart successfully. Now click on View Cart at the right side Your Cart.

In the cart, make sure to enable the WhoisGuard protection and PremmiumDNS if you want. Once everything is done, click on Confirm Order.

Now login to your account if you are not already logged in or create a new account if you don’t have one already.

You are on the last page, where you need to add your billing details and card information which you want to use to buy the domain.

Click on Pay Now to make the payment and purchase the domain.

FAQ: Choose A Perfect Domain Name For Your Blog

You might have some questions about choosing a good domain name for your blog. I have tried to answer them via this FAQ Section.

Over To You…

If you are just planning to start a blog then must be prepared by reading our How to start a blog guide?

Never do select a domain just randomly because it will be hard for you to change this in future because you don’t have experts as MOZ had when they changed.

All the points which I have shared above are enough to help you in choosing a domain name for your blog.

Many of the beginners do the same mistake and don’t take care while selecting a domain for their first blog, share this post with all those to make them aware of these tips.