5 Easy Steps to Choose a Great Domain Name for your Niche Blog
Picking the right domain name is a very simple process that often involves a mix of personal preferences and the construction of a public image for your website or business.
As I’ve mentioned in my introduction to niche blogging, the emphasis on a tight content focus is very important and your domain name can reflect your overall commitment to the field either through keyword relevance or effective branding.
In terms of niche blogging, picking a domain name simply requires you to align your choice of a domain name with your overall niche blogging masterplan.
Are you planning to build a flagship blog with a large audience? Or do you want to create multiple smaller blogs which focus primarily on search engine traffic? Your choice of the flagship or brute force method will determine the type of domain name you will choose.
Many articles about domain name selection primarily focus on several key points such as the length of the domain name, keywords vs. brand, suitable top level domains as well as multiple domain name registrations. Problogger has a useful article on choosing your domain name, which covers the above factors in greater detail.
While there are many differing opinions on the various factors surrounding domain name selection, the process of choosing the actual domain name for your niche blog is surprisingly simple and straight forward.
Five Easy Steps to Choose a Good Domain Name
Here are five steps which I personally use to choose the domain names for my niche blogs. Note that before embarking on the following steps, you should already have chosen the appropriate niche for your blog.
I would suggest reading my post on how to choose your blog niche if you have not already decided upon a specific niche topic.
- Determine your niche blog strategy. If you are focusing on search traffic and multiple small blogs, go for keywords in the domain. If you are building a flagship or medium-sized blog, pick a domain name that is brandable, short and memorable.
- Make a list of keywords. If you’re using a keyword for your domain, come up with 10 different keyword variations. For example, if you are writing about ipods, you could try ipodlove, ipodreviews, ipodfetish and ipodjunkie.com. If you’re short of time, run your primary & secondary keywords through a domain name generator.
- Brainstorm domain name brands. I personally use Urban Directory very often if I’m going for branding because they offer multiple slang-based variations of your keyword that are often catchy, brand-able and search traffic friendly.
- Check for Domain availability. After coming up with a list of the keywords, visit AjaxWhois or DomainBot to confirm if the domain names are taken. These domain name checkers operate via Ajax and are quickest ways for you to test all the various domain names you’ve written down.
- Register your domain. Proceed to the domain name registrar and purchase the domain you want. Consider buying other top level domains (.org, .info etc.) if you are going the flagship route.
And you’re done! You should take no more than one hour to come up with the domain names for several blogs. Spending any more time on this isn’t productive because other tasks such as setting up the actual blog will take a lot more time and energy.
Some might suggest buying a domain name research tool but I honestly do not think they are worth your money unless you are planning on solely earning income through domain name investing.
The free tools I’ve mentioned above are really all you need and the search advantages that will come from using paid domain name tools can easily be offset by effective on and off-site SEO for your blogs.
Seven Day Niche Blog Challenge: Update #3
Today is actually the last day of my personal goal to set up seven niche blogs in a week and I’ll be creating the final niche blog a few hours from now.
I’ve meant to update more frequently but the lack of time has prevented me from doing so. But I’ll definitely continue with the list of niche blogging articles/tutorials, which are mainly constructed from notes I’ve taken during the entire seven day process.
Hopefully I’ll finish publishing all of these articles by the end of this week, by which I’ll be able to offer some more retrospective insight on the entire process.
Meanwhile, do feel free to let me know if you have any thoughts on the articles so far and what you’ll like to see or learn more about in the upcoming posts in this series.
Have you also ever tired http://www.psyhicwhois.com ? its similar to ajax but checks on all domain names
i personally love that one.
–Julia
Thanks.
Julia,
I’ve tried PsyhicWhois before.. its somewhat similar to DomainBot. There are lots of AJAX-style domain name checkers around.. I guess you can just pick the one that you like and stick with it. ^-^
I happened upon the name of my blog through a completely random moment. I hadn’t decided on a name yet, but just started to toss names into GoDaddy’s name checker. it coughed up a list of names, and lo and behold, the perfect name was found!
really useful info. both has its pros and cons. i prefer branding with some sort of keyword hinting what your site is all about.
Some good tips there – I was adamant that I had to get the keyword ‘community’ into my blog’s domain name to reflect my core niche.
Additionally, I wanted something to represent enthusiasm and drive – the word ’spark’ seemed to tag on naturally.
Hence the birth of CommunitySpark.com!
- Martin Reed
As I recently changed my domain name, I had to go through a lot of this thinking. For me, the big requirement was to get a two-word domain name – short, catchy and relevant. There aren’t many left that are related to money, so you just have to keep searching and trying alternatives!
By the way – are you going to be giving us the links to these niche sites? I couldn’t find the answer on other posts.
Kumiko,
Perhaps you didn’t read my post on developing your niche blogging strategy. ^-^
Great info here. I agree with Paul J. I think this approach coupled with some branding works great. I also like a memorable name like, “Dosh Dosh” (hehe it is easy to REMEMBER…that can’t be underrated);). I used a rock band name generator combined with this same strategy: http://theclevercynic.blogspot.com/2007/04/name-your-blog-part-1.html
Thanks Maki. Excellent strategy! I remember when NetBusinessBlog starting doing a case study with a niche site and gave away the URL – I kept thinking it lost a lot of integrity.
When you reveal those URLs and earnings it’s going to be big time stuff. I hope you’re thinking about an ebook!
My main domain, I now wish I had put a little more thought into. At the time I was going through a breakup and I collect frogs, so the two came together in an odd fairy tale sort of way. Not the right move for a niche blog. The other domain I’m currently working on came about out of a conversation in a traffic exchange shoutbox. We were joking around about what we wear when we sit at the computer and I just said, “I’m blogging without pants today.” Hence the domain, bloggingwithoutpants.com was born. If you think about it, a lot can be done with a domain name such as this. I really hope that within 6 months the new domain can be the main money-maker. Remember- names can come to you from the least likely of sources.
I almost started one called techcessories. Not SUPER catchy, but I bought the domains anyway. =)
I always thought my website’s name http://www.noheat.com (A Tech News site like DownloadSquad or Lifehacker) may hurt me a little bit, but from my experience it doesn’t really matter much when it comes to the name of the domain. Traffic is hard to come by no matter what you do.
Incidently noheat.com was a domain I bought a long time ago to forward some traffic to another ecommerce domain I had at the time. Thats when buying expired domains were all the buzz.
I just called it Noheat “Tech News Too Cool”, I thought once about renaming the site but I don’t want to loose the PR and links I’ve built up so far.
BTW Derrick I am number one or two on Google for “Usb accessories” maybe we can do something with that domain of yours?
Having domains with your own personal names can be cool too (Mine’s http://www.leow-john.com).! Another good way of snapping up good domain names is to use keyword research tools to mine high search volume, but low competition keywords, and then buy domain names based around those keywords if you are into affiliate marketing.
Personally, if you are dead serious about domain name investments, buy good keyword research tools to help you. I bought a keyword research tool called Keyword Elite last week, and it helped me to decide to buy a funny domain called http://www.femalemuscles.com to promote body building products.
Anyway, doshdosh is very unique and easy to remember. So buy domains around aurally sounding ones too..!
@Beth
Thanks for sharing the rationale behind your domain. I’ve always wondered why your other blog was called Blogging without Pants. ^-^
@Derrich,
I think Techcessories sounds cool. Good luck with your site!
@Chris
No Heat does sound pretty intriguing and stands out from all the tech sites. It’s definitely brand-able and your logo fits well with the blog name.
@John Leow
I’m not really a believer in keyword research when buying a domain for a niche website. I think the domain plays a role, but a minimal one. A lot more actually depends on how you build links to the site and optimize it for search. Of course its a completely different ballgame when you are buying hundreds of domains in order to make money off typo and type-in traffic…
Maki, is there any truth to something I read recently (wish I could remember where!) which said that some ‘domain prospectors’ monitor searches for domain names, and buy them up automatically if free, hoping to then sell them to you at a profit?
I.e. don’t search for a domain you’re not going to buy ’til next week as it will be taken and 10 times the price by then.
Grain of truth or urban myth?
Hi,
Everyone has a fascination. My fascination with with the web and domains. I am amazed at how the internet has evolved and will continue to do so. Domains are the starting and endingpoint when searching on the web hence owning domains is good startegy for the furture.
I think that niche domain names are expiring soon, and what I also notice is that most of the sites that do make big a** money don’t have anything to do with niche
take it for example Google ? Whats does google mean ? 
and have nothing to do with domain name 
yet their domains cost millions.
Yahoo, Apple ?
Those are just companies that got respect for their product
Bloggers like I have to use niche domain names because we don’t offer products but we sell products for google, yahoo, apple, adobe, microsoft, linux , celebrities etc.
I think i should copy and paste this text to my blog lol
I agree with you, keyword rich domains are hard to find. When ever I try to bid on the expired domains which has page rank I am always get unbidden. Now I look for domains which and keywords value even though it doesn’t have page rank.
Hey Maki I put your Prosense themes under test for full two weeks! I Love the themes I admit ! Check me out ok ? I know u got time !!! hahah
TTYL
—Julia!
You can also pick the name from what you want your blog to center on. If it’s international, it should have “international” in it, and so on and forth. Great post!!
-http://sjenterprises.blogspot.com/
Do you think there is an advantage in having a name that starts with a letter towards the beginning of the alphabet?
If your site is listed in any kind of directory, you are likely to end up hidden away in sub pages otherwise.
I personally avoid contacting businesses with names such as AAAAcme though as the blatancy annoys me.
I’m all for the the short and catchy domain names. Content can take care of the keywords for search engine traffic.
Sueblimely,
I don’t think there’s really an advantage.. you might get listed higher up in blogrolls and directories but these sites usually do not bring you any decent traffic IMO. The brand and keyword factor is usually more important for future online success.
Yes, business names with repetitive alphabet structures can be visually annoying
Chris,
I have no idea if that might be true or not. From my personal experience, domain names that I’ve checked a few weeks ago are still available so perhaps this phenomenon (if true) would be limited to specific domain checking tools/websites..
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