Congratulations! So you’re finally getting around to starting your blog.
You may have your niche narrowed down, content structure all worked out, and a strong marketing lineup in place. However, now comes the entertaining part.
What on earth are you going to name it?
One of the most obvious things about your blog to a first impression web visitor is none other than your blog’s name and branding efforts.
A blog name sets your identity in stone. So it sucks that there are still some bloggers out there who up and decides that they’re starting to hate how their blog name sounds.
Maybe it no longer feels relevant to your niche anymore. Perhaps you’re starting to realize that it’s too long, or it blends into the background of your competition and fails to make much of an impact. Maybe, you’ve outgrown it.
If you’re only just starting with naming your blog – good for you because you’re starting with a clean slate, or maybe you’re looking to revamp and rebrand your blog with a better name; in which case it’s never too late to spruce things up as well.
To avoid regretting your decisions ever again -here are 13 solid tips on how to name a blog that you can be proud of.
1. Analyze the tone you’re going for in your blog name
Before you can even start to conceptualize a name -start thinking about the tone you’d want to set for your blog.
Do you have a more professional writing style? Is it sassy?
Whatever it is, a staple of proper blog names is usually in its ability to reflect the exact tone and values that your writing embodies.
If you’ve got a sense of humor through your writing style, then try incorporating something witty through your name. Quickly jot down the words that are associated with the mood. What are the words you can think of that relates to wit, humor, and sarcasm?
Alternatively, you could go over to something like relatedwords.org to search for words that match the feel of your blog! A decent online Thesaurus should also do the trick if you’re looking for synonyms.
2. Look at your target audiences when deciding on a blog name
If you already have an established blog – look at the demographics of your most popular target audiences.
What are the age groups of people that usually visit your website? Where are they from? Are your target audiences, mostly male or female?
If you have no clue, take a good guess. Use your intuition!
All of these are the questions you would want to ask yourself waaayy before deciding on a blog name.
Put yourself in the shoes of your audiences (or potential ones, if you have yet to start a blog) and start thinking about the experience you want them to have through your website.
You can start to do this by listing down the ideal characteristics of your audiences. Where they live, what their interests are, what are the reasons they visit your blog, etc.
Take Refinery29, for example! The usage of ‘refinery’ was done here to implement distilling information into the daily lives of all of their readers.
What does your blog want to do – and what’s the most sophisticated way of describing it?
3. Make sure your blog name is short and sweet!
Good blog names are always short, catchy, and easy to remember.
The end goal is the same, no matter how you choose to name a blog. You want to make it easy for your target audience to find you.
So consider these three criteria when coming up with your brand. A good rule of thumb here is to cap it at 3-4 syllables tops! Anything too much is going to be complicated, long, and extra painful for your audience to remember.
Plus, a shorter blog name is better in general. Let’s say you’re starting a food enthusiast blog, for instance. Which would post would catch your attention first of all?
How To Make Salsa Sauce l TheMexicano
Or…
How To Make Salsa Sauce l Delicious Adventures of Sandra
We hope you made the right guess! Even if it’s for purely how it looks (which is equally as important, tbh) – you don’t want a blog name that’s draggy and forgettable.
4. Consider using a ‘portmanteau’ when deciding on a blog name
No, a portmanteau is not a type of wine. In fact, you see portmanteaus littered across the Internet.
A portmanteau is the combination of the vowels and meanings of more than one word. Words like brunch, workaholic, infomercial, etc. are examples of portmanteaus.
So why not apply this same concept to your blog name?
The survey website “Swagbucks” is a pretty clear definition of how you can elevate your brand with a portmanteau.
Use NameMesh if you’re interested in incorporating a portmanteau.
5. Choosing the perfect top-level domain for your blog.
A Top-Level Domain or TLD is the category of domain extensions you need to decide on before ever registering a blog name.
This includes the .com, .org and .net extensions. There are about 1,500 of them at the moment -although most of them serve very different purposes!
For instance, you’re interested in starting a travel blog. The usual suspects would be a .net or .com. Whereas if you’re planning to start a nonprofit page, a .org will suffice- as it’s much easier for your audience to get a gist of what they’re getting.
Note that the .com is probably the most expensive option when it comes to buying your domain. However, it is the most utilized TLD out there -and much easier for your audience to remember. You may have some trouble looking for the perfect .com (they can be already in use, or you’d have to pay a premium), but we strongly suggest that you stick to the .com for easy recall.
6. What is your blog name’s staying power?
When we talk about the ‘staying power’ of a blog; we necessarily mean that you want to make sure you consider relevance when it comes to how to name a blog.
Why? Because although it may seem trendy or impressive to you at the moment, all those things may change in the next 3 or 4 years to come. Remember, you don’t want to regret your decision! So it’s essential to choose something evergreen!
Now we understand that there’s no way to guarantee the fact that your blog will remain relevant for all those years in the future.
However, you don’t want to end up with a name like singletravels.com as you don’t know if you’re going to be single forever right?
You should also pay extra attention to your blog name if you have any plans of expanding your niches in the future!
It’s cool if you’re blogging solely about makeup tips to have a name like makeupdiva.com etc. However, it’s going to be a little outdated if you plan to also blog about holistic skincare or nutrition, right?
7. Try asking your friends and family for their opinion
This is probably one of the most critical tips yet!
Good blog names are always the special ones that can resonate with people – so why not try them out with your family and friends above all?
You could organize a little brainstorm session to determine how to come up with a blog name. List down all of your intended tones, niches, examples of content on a paper -and allow your peers to decide on possible courses of action.
Alternatively, you could even come up with existing blog name examples. Then, get them to choose!
Your family and friends are excellent people to go too. You can always count on their opinions being unfiltered and direct. It always helps to run your ideas by someone that’s not you; because there’s always a chance that you could have missed out or overlooked something important.
8. Avoid including numbers or other special characters
Posing as ‘FoodieFan97’ or ‘JonasGurl-101’ might have worked for your Myspace profile – but it’s not going to do you any favors here. We live in 2019 now, where people’s attention and top of mind memory are the most scarce resource. Make your domain memorable!
Numbers and other special characters are amongst the worst things you could have in a domain unless it’s part of your brand – and is known by a vast following. Like again, Refinery29.
Special characters like hyphens, hashtags, and asterisks, however – should be avoided like the plague.
Besides looking overall bad, this is also bad when it comes to your SEO efforts. You could end up spending thousands on Google Ads and trying to rank higher in search engines.
If your domain remains to seem unprofessional or amateurish, there’s no point!
9. Research your competition
Another tip if you’re figuring out how to name a blog – is to look no further than your competition.
What better way to gauge proper blog names than from others in the industry as well? Let’s take workout blogs, for instance. They’ve usually named something like:-
• Born Fitness
• Love Sweat Fitness
• The Fitnessista
If you’re running a fitness blog, incorporating the word “fitness” into their blog is pretty standard. All of these make it favorable for SEO purposes due to the exact match and relevance. Plus, audiences get to quickly identify your niche within the first couple of seconds – which is always a good thing.
10. Trying out blog name generators
If you haven’t done so already – consider experimenting with an online name generator tool to come up with some great blog names.
Now, bear this in mind.
Out of the hundred-something options they deliver to you; not all of them are going to be of the best quality, nor best suited for your niche, voice, tone, etc.
However, we find that blog name generators are a fantastic place to start conceptualizing and narrowing down what you want! It works great as Ground 0; if you’re stuck for words and expressions to describe your blog.
Some of our all-time favorite generators are online tools like:-
• Nameboy
Pairs with Bluehost to immediately check the availability of your desired blog name.
• Wordoid
It generates a blog name with 15 characters or less. Remember how we mentioned portmanteaus? You can find a whole lot of them here.
• BizNameWiz
Produces professional-sounding, strong business names.
11. Make sure your blog name is social-media friendly
In other words, make sure that your desired blog name is also unused by other people’s social media profiles.
These include profiles/business pages through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Don’t ever make the mistake of registering an available domain -but with then realizing later on that someone else has already used the same one through social media!
It takes 15 minutes or less to vet this through.
Go through each platform to see if your blog’s name (or slight variations of it) has already been taken over by other people, and then work around that!
12. Use a ‘juxtapositioned’ blog name
A juxtaposition is defined as the act of placing two separate elements side by side to emphasize a comparison.
In the blogging context? It’s putting two seemingly unrelated words together that you don’t see every day to create a unique, memorable, and distinct contrast.
One of our favorites can be seen through the makeup brand name Beauty Bakerie.
Really though, how creative is that? Not only does it perfectly defined a juxtaposed blog name; it embodies the funky and original tone of the brand itself!
The obvious perks of incorporating a juxtaposed blog name are 100% standing out from the crowd.
If you want to do it right; we recommend first off choosing a word that you think pretty generally describes your niche. Let’s say you’re a tech blogger -which in case your keyword would be “tech”.
Then, list down a set of words that you consider would emphasize your dominance in what you do. Something like TechGuru, TechNinja, SenorTech, etc. immediately gives your audiences a persona they can remember -and an unforgettable, quirky blog name that’s bound to stick.
13. Don’t forget to check your domain availability
You’ve narrowed down the blog name of your dreams. Created branding logos, worked up social media accounts, and everything else in the wake of your excitement.
And…of course. Your domain name is already taken.
This generally applies to those just starting with a new blog, and it’s one of the most disheartening things to see! However, you have to understand that the market is increasingly competitive now, and high-quality domains are quite quickly running out.
To avoid the hassle and heartache, always start off with checking your availability on Namecheap! You can also do this through any blog hosting platforms; our favorites are WPX Hosting, BlueHost, and HostGator.
Choosing the right blog name might seem like much fun at first, but don’t underestimate the work that goes into it.
Your blog name is the most prominent showcase of your brand. It’s your very own signature out there; so you want to make sure it makes one hell of an impression!
Regardless, do all of this with time and careful consideration. Understand that your chosen blog name is most likely going to stick with you for a very long time; so it’s okay to take that extra day/week/month to think about your options.
Jesslyn has been a senior content strategist and writer for personal finance and side hustles for the past 4 years. She believes in the power of an idea and breaking the rules whenever necessary. Above all, balance is everything. When she’s not writing up a mad scramble, she leans towards wine bars and yoga studios on the weekends.
