Making Your Blog Name Ideas a Reality
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Planning on starting a blog? Here are my golden rules for turning your blog name ideas into a reality.
Blogging is the ultimate side hustle. Yes, it takes determination, dedication and hard work, especially if you plan to make a full-time income from it. However, it is also very rewarding and I am currently lucky enough to call it my main job and my main source of income. In the post I’m going to be looking at naming a blog and seeing if your blog name ideas will work for you.
Making Your Blog Name Ideas a Reality
For those of you starting out with blogging, choosing a blog name can be one of the trickiest parts. You may already have plenty of blog name ideas and of course, you can change it further down the line but that could result in a huge amount of hassle and it can have an impact on your domain authority which you will want to start building on from day one.
I am currently in the process of building a further two blogs so choosing a blog name is something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to recently. I have a couple of fairly definite blog name ideas for one but the other is still very much to be decided.
Here is my list of the most important things to consider when choosing a blog name
1. Pros and Cons of Using Your Own Name For Your Blog Name
Using your name for your blog or website has some definite pros and cons.
Pros of using your name for your blog:
- It can cover all bases. Many people find that after blogging for a while they want to cover a wider range of subjects or transition into a different niche. Using your own name makes this easy to do.
- It can help you look like an expert in your subject area if you’re well-known enough to be going by your name alone.
- Makes admin easier and anyone contacting you regarding collaborations etc will easily know exactly who to contact.
Examples of where this works: www.morganmwoods.com
Cons of using your name for your blog:
- If your name is unusual or has an unusual spelling you will be forever spelling it out to other people and it could make it harder for people to find when searching for you in google.
- Avoid if you share a name with a celebrity. You will never beat them in the rankings and most social media will already be taken in that name which could cause confusion.
- Obviously doesn’t work if you plan to blog anonymously.
A brilliant example of how you can make it work even if you do share a name with a celeb: www.notthatjamieoliver.com
2. To Niche or not to Niche
Coming up with blog name ideas within your niche can be tricky. It’s likely that there will already be lots of blogs with similar names so be prepared to maybe tweak a little if needed.
This is especially true if you plan on starting a mummy or parenting blog – there are so many out there that have ‘Mum’ or ‘ Mummy’ in the title it might be difficult to find something that really stands out but still shows clearly what you want to write about.
The word ‘Family’ is less used and may be a good compromise as a blog name idea.
If you plan to write about your family (and use their names in your blog title and in your writing) it’s worth considering the implications of this.
Some people are fine with sharing pictures of their children etc on their blogs and others not so much – it is your choice but using your kid’s names and then not sharing anything about them may seem a little odd.
I was told by someone when I first started my blog that only people from Somerset would read it because it had Somerset in the title.
I’ve found this to be untrue and so far I’ve had no issues regarding the name. Also, I read plenty of other blogs with place names in their title and it doesn’t put me off at all.
3. The Numbers Game
I wouldn’t use a number when choosing a blog name.
While in some instances it might work – for example, if you were launching a website called ‘Blogging 101’ but changing the word ‘to’ for ‘2’ or ‘for’ for ‘4’ creates the same issue as before with constantly having to spell out the name.
I would also avoid using the word blog and using any symbols such as a hyphen.
4. Avoiding Copyright
Any name that is related to a brand will more than likely be copyrighted or trademarked. There are some phrases that are copyrighted too such as ‘This sick beat’ (Taylor Swift) and ‘You cannot be serious’ (John Mcenroe). If you decide you want to trademark your blog name once you’ve bought it KatyKicker has a fab post on it here.
Find out how to see if a name or word is copyrighted here.
5. Checking Availability
So, if you’ve got through all of that and still want to use the name you had in mind, fab!
However, you will need to check it’s not already being used. Namecheckr is a fantastic tool that checks whether a domain name is already being used.
It also checks almost every social platform to see if it’s available there too. It’s a really handy tool that should stop you from having to spend ages trawling through all the social sites to check for yourself.
If the name you have chosen is quite long it shows as unavailable on Twitter as this platform only allows a maximum of 15 characters for a user name so you may have to be creative or use a shortened version.
It’s also worth considering buying multiple domain names if you plan to build your blog into a business – for example for Savvy in Somerset I own both the .com and .co.uk even though I only actively use the .com. This is to stop someone coming along and building their own website with the same name.
If only the .co.uk OR .com is available for your chosen site name I would avoid using it.
You will more than likely be competing against someone else and it could make it more difficult for your blog to rank on Google as well as being confusing for your readers.
I thought I’d finish up with some examples of Blog name ideas I love – Mostly because they really stand out or because they some up their niche perfectly.
www.diaryofafatbottomedgirl.com
Finally, good luck with choosing a blog name and I hope this post has helped with some blog name ideas – once you’ve made the decision and bought the domain it feels like a huge relief and you can get going on your website!
Thanks for the pointers here, I have often thought about having a blog and these are great posts to find your way around the maze of the things to consider when starting