The Art of Choosing a Domain Name: Branding and Descriptives
Branding is essential to getting your blog off the ground. Sure a catchy name doesn’t meant everything (obviously, since my name isn’t catchy), but it does help build an identity and rapport with your readers.
Although your domain name is important, it’s not easy to get a good one. Thanks to the millions of people that have staked their claim to that internet real estate already, ingenuity is the name of the game.
Spend some time with a domain registrar and find out what’s taken and what’s not. It may suggest suffixes and prefixes to make your whizbang name work, but an overused suffix or prefix probably hurts more than it helps.
Branding is the idea that your domain can easily be identified with your site. It’s achieved in one of two ways:
- A direct and self-explanatory domain name (dare I say, webmoneyresource.com?)
- A catchy name that gets stuck in peoples head (Yahoo, Google)
Ironically, the more off the wall name builds better long term branding and identity, since it sets the site apart from so many other competitors in the field. Unfortunately, for someone starting their site out, not many people will be able to link the name with your content (and it won’t impact search engines beneficially.
My suggestion is to try and bridge the gap by offering a little bit of color in addition to a keyword (whizbangaffiliates.com?, I really love the word whizbang…) This offers the best of both words, and it makes it more likely you will find an open .com.
Remember, you will be investing in this domain, make sure it’s something you won’t regret later. It may help to run it by friends and family, or ideally, your target audience. But don’t worry, the trouble is worth it. Once a site has a strong domain name and identity, it’s hard to imagine the site without it.