How to Choose a Blog Name: The Complete Guide

When you're starting a blog, there can be many pros and cons and one of the first decisions you have to make is what to name it.

This can be tricky because you want something that's catchy and memorable, but also something that accurately represents your blog.

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of choosing a blog name and give you some tips to help you find the perfect fit!

How to Choose a Name for Your Blog 

When coming up with blog name ideas, it doesn't matter if you want to create a food blog, a personal brand blog, a fashion blog, or a lifestyle blog - your blog name will matter. Having a catchy blog name is just part of the puzzle. There are many questions to ask yourself when naming your blog. Here are some:

What Is Your Blog About?

If your blog is about surfing, you might want to include the word "surf" in your title. If it's about fashion, you might want something that sounds chic and stylish.

Now, you don't always have to include your subject in the title of your blog. However, if you do, the advantage is that people will immediately know what your blog is about when they see the title. This can be helpful if you're trying to attract a specific audience or niche.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

Once you have identified your audience, you can start brainstorming names that will appeal to them.

For example, if you're blogging for new moms, you might want something that sounds nurturing and supportive. If you're blogging for teenagers, you might want something that's edgy or cool.

What Tone Do You Want to Set With Your Blog?

Your blog name should also be reflective of the overall tone and personality of your blog. Do you want it to sound serious or professional? Fun and quirky? Creative and unique? Keep this in mind as you brainstorm potential names.

Is It Easy to Spell or Say Out Loud?

If you decided on a name for your blog already, one trick is to ask someone over the phone or in-person to spell the name of the blog. If they can't, then you might want to pick something else. This is because you want people to be able to easily find your blog when they search for it online. If they can't spell it, chances are they can't find it.

When you tell your blog's name to someone, is it easily repeatable? For example, if your blog's intended audience is English speakers, does your blog include words that would sound difficult to them? If you want to blog in another language, make sure that the name is still pronounceable and spellable in that language as well.

What Kind of Writing Style Do You Have?

Writing style is something you must know about yourself. If you want to write well, you must know what type of writing style you prefer. You might even find out that you’re better suited for one genre over another.

So how do you figure out what your writing style is? Read some books. Each book tells a story. Each book has a tone and a voice. These things tell us a lot about the writer behind the words.

Now, take a look at the books you read. How did you feel reading those books? Were you excited? Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did you feel uncomfortable? Do you remember anything specific about the book?

Think about all of these questions while reading a few more books. Then, come up with a list of your favorite books. Now compare the lists. Which books do you relate to most? Which ones make you cringe? Which ones are just plain boring?

This helps you narrow down your writing style.

What Happens if You Decide to Change Your Niche?

Changing your niche can have consequences. For example, you might lose some of your current readerships. They might not enjoy the new content as much. You also run the risk of confusing your readers if you change the focus of your blog too drastically.

There's also Google to consider. Since your personal blog relies on traffic from search engines, if you change your blog's focus, you might have to start from scratch in terms of SEO and building up search engine rankings.

So if you do decide to change your niche, it's important to weigh the pros and cons first.

These are just some of the questions you should ask yourself when trying to come up with a name for your blog.

However, sometimes it's actually ok. For example, a good blog name allows you to take different directions without losing followers. For example, you can switch focus from travel blogging to personal finance blogging. If your domain name can someone relate to both, then you should be ok.

I would seriously stick to one niche but branch out to sub-niches within that niche. That way, you don't confuse your audience and most importantly - Google.

Is the Domain Name Even Available?

You found the perfect name for your own blog. Now what? Time to register it. You go to either Namecheap.com or GoDaddy.com and enter the name. To your shock, it's taken.

So what do you do? First off, If you can check if it's available with a different TLD like .org or .net. However, just stick with a dot com. You could hyphenate it, (like I did with this blog which I admit was a mistake! yikes) but that violates the rule I talked about earlier about saying the name to someone and having them spell it for you. It's awkward saying "dash" in a domain name.

Your solution - keep brainstorming and find something close with a .com extension. There's no rush here because your domain name is important!

12 Tips for Finding Blog Names

Now that you understand many of the questions you need to ask yourself when picking a name for your blog, let's get into some tips to find a good one.

1. Start With a Focus Keyword

A focused keyword is an important component of any SEO strategy. You want to make sure you are targeting a specific audience with your articles. This way, you can ensure that your content resonates with your target market. If you don't know what your target audience wants, it's difficult to write something that they'll actually read.

Your article titles should always contain one or two focus keywords. These keywords should be relevant to your post and provide value to the reader.

The same can be said about your blog's name. Having your main keyword in the title somewhere can be a huge benefit.

For example, if your blog is on finance, you could include the word finance or terms that closely match that word. Finding a name could be difficult due to the competition, but you could break it up by including your name, like "FinancebyDave.com" or "DavesFinance.com". Using your name is just an idea, you could include any other word besides your keyword.

2. Don’t Make It Too Long

Ideally, your blog's name should be under 15 characters. The shorter, the better.

This is for a few reasons. First, it's easier to remember. If someone asks you what your blog is called and it's a mouthful, they're going to have a hard time remembering it. Second, it looks better on social media profiles and business cards. You want people to be able to quickly find your blog and share it with others.

3. Check the Availability of Social Media Handles

This one is important, especially if you plan on using social media to promote your blog. You want to make sure that the name you choose for your blog is available on all of the major social media platforms.

If it's taken, I would still go for it. Just modify the name a bit on social media. Your name on social media is not nearly as important as your actual domain name.

4. Use Your Own Name

There's a great benefit to using your own name. It's unique, it's personal, and people will remember it. You can also pick any niche you want when you use your name. Also, if you're going to switch the niche, it would be a lot easier to switch to a fitness blog if using your own name rather than something like Jakesfishandtackle.com.

Using your own name might take longer for Google to understand your content. However, if you stick to one niche and the sub niches within that niche, over time Google will understand your content and relate your name to that niche. It might take a bit more time to rank as well, but with good content and a backlink strategy, you'll do fine. There are plenty of blogs out there that kill it with just the person's name in the URL.

There are some situations where you might not want to use your own name. For example, if you have a very long name or a hard-to-pronounce name - it might not be the best choice. What you can do is shorten it and adjust the spelling. Heck, people do this with their own names in real life anyway, so you can certainly do this with your blog.

5. Use a Thesaurus

A thesaurus is a tool that helps writers find synonyms for words and phrases. A good thesaurus will give you alternatives to choose from, depending on how you are trying to use the word. For example, if you are trying to write something funny, you might look up "funny," "humorous," or "joke." If you are writing about a topic that requires research, you might look up terms such as "research," "study," "investigate," and "discover."

It's a great way to find a domain name especially when it comes to popular words or phrases that are taken already. Just substitute it for something else that means the same thing. Voila!

6. Create a Portmanteau

A portmanteau is defined as a combination of two words to form a single new word. It’s a great way to create a brand-new word. If you want to make sure it doesn’t sound like something someone else has already coined, avoid making a word too long and complicated.

You can also use a thesaurus to find synonyms for words and then combine them. For example, if you want to start a travel blog, but all of the good travel-related domain names are taken, you could try combining "travel" and "adventure" to create the portmanteau "travelventure.

7. Look at Your Competitor’s Blog Names

A good way to get some inspiration is to look at your competition. See what they're doing and see if you can do it better. Are they just using their name? Or, do they include a keyword in the URL?

8. Use a Blog Name Generator

A blog name generator can help you brainstorm ideas and find available domain names. All you have to do is enter some keywords related to your blog topic, and the generator will spit out a bunch of potential names.

Be sure to check the availability of the domain name before you get too attached to it. Just because a name generator spits out a name doesn't mean it's available. However, you could find the perfect blog name with a blog name generator.

Some popular blog name generators are:

• Namelix
• Panabee
• Bust a Name
• Dotomator
• Wordoid

9. Choose a Random Name

If you don't want to use your own name for your blog, you could choose something random. Or perhaps use your middle name as your last time.

If you don't want to use a person's name, you can even make up a word. There are plenty of brands with weird made-up names. For example, Nike isn't a word, it's a brand. But we are so aware of it that it's become part of every language on the planet.

So don't worry if it doesn't make sense. If you can make it catchy, people will remember it.

10. Use Humor to Name a Blog

A funny blog name is one of the best ways to stand out among other bloggers. And if you're looking to add a little bit of levity and personality to your blog, why not use humor? Here are a few tips for using humor to name your blog:

First, consider what kind of humor you want to use. Are you looking for something self-deprecating? Witty? Silly? Once you've decided on the tone of your humor, come up with a few potential names that fit that bill. If you're having trouble getting started, try brainstorming with a friend or two.

Once you've got a few potential names, run them by some people whose opinions you trust. Ask them if they think the name is funny, and whether they think it would be off-putting to potential readers. If most people respond positively, then you've probably found a winner!

11. Avoid Using Spam Words

There are certain words that are often used by spammers. These include "free," "win," and "cash." Avoid using these words in your blog name as it will make people less likely to trust your site.

12. Make Sure You Don't Infringe on Trademark Names

It's not a good idea to choose a blog name that is similar to an existing trademark. This can lead to legal problems down the road. If you're not sure if a name is trademarked, you can do a quick search on the USPTO website.

Conclusion

So there you have it. These are some tips on how to choose a blog name. Just remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. As long as it's under 15 characters, is easy to spell and remember, that is going to be your main focus.