5 Blog Naming Tips

by

Ted Demopoulos

Blog naming is a big topic. A lot of people obsess over naming their blog. No doubt about it, blog names are very important. What you call your blog matters.

A great blog name can help with positioning, branding, making you or your company memorable, and much more.

A bad blog name? Well, it can position you poorly, seem unprofessional, be hard to remember, even be offensive to your target market and readers, and perhaps worse, you may hate it.

These five tips should help you choose an appropriate blog name.

1) Give your blog a reasonable name.

Avant-garde names are very popular now, for example, Boing Boing and icanhascheezburger are extremely popular blogs, but do you want a “strange” name for your blog long term? Blogs are becoming mainstream, and most blogs, for example professional and business blogs, should have mainstream names.

2) Consider a descriptive name.

“Blogging for Business” is a descriptive name; My Blogging for Business blog is quite simply about “blogging for business.”

“Schneier on Security” is another descriptive name. It’s about security and written by well known security author and thought leader Bruce Schneier. Oh, you hadn’t heard of Bruce Schneier before? It doesn’t matter as his target audience certainly has.

Ask the Atheist, CorporatePR, and Java Programming Blog are other examples of blogs with descriptive names.

3) Don’t use the term “blog” in your blog name

First of all blog isn’t the prettiest name. Some readers may be biased against the term blog. Also it will certainly sound anachronistic, old fashioned, someday, as the term blog will go away eventually.

4) Get a domain name to match your blog name if you can.

You don’t want a URL like myblog.typepad.com or myblog.blogspot.com. For example, Seth Godin, the New York Times best selling author, blogs at sethgodin.typepad.com and when I asked himif there was one thing he could do differently if he started blogging today, he had to think a bit, but he said he probably should have used his own domain and put his blog under sethgodin.com.

One good exception is if you use company domain name or a subdomain for your blog.

5) Your blog doesn’t even NEED its own name.

You could just use your own name on the blog. This is a very valid approach when it’s you that you’re branding and promoting though the blog, as opposed to a product, company, or idea, etc.

For example I could start a blog that just said “Ted Demopoulos” in the header, perhaps together with a picture or some graphic.

6) There is no such thing as a “perfect” name for a blog, and if it were perfect today, it probably wouldn’t be perfect tomorrow. It’s best to pick a great blog name, knowing that there will most likely be compromises in naming your blog, and just get on with it.

7) Relax as you can always change your blog name. Hyper popular blogger Guy Kawasaki has changed his blog name several times with no adverse efforts.

Blog names are important for sure, but don’t let choosing a name slow you down. These tips should help you choose a good blog name and get started blogging. You can’t have a successful blog unless you start, so just do it.

And for over 100 tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook “Secrets of Successful Blogging” at

secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

By Ted Demopoulos, author of “Blogging for Business” and “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”

Article Source:

5 Blog Naming Tips

}