So you’re wanting to start a blog? That’s great! Blogging is such a rewarding career. Before you can do much of anything, you have to decide on a domain name! Read on to learn how to choose a domain name for your blog. But first things first, how do you choose the right niche? 

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What is a niche?

In lamest terms, your niche is your topic. What do you want your blog to be about? Who is your target audience? You must keep all that in mind while deciding on a niche and domain name.

You need to choose a niche that you are…

Passionate about

If you’re going to be spending hours and hours researching and writing about a certain topic, it would make sense that it should be something you’re passionate about. Make a list of your interests. You can literally write about anything because there will always be someone else who has the same interests as you do.

Knowledgeable about

You want to pick a topic that you know a lot about. There is no need to be a total expert, because you are going to be doing tons of research. You will soon become an expert! But you definitely don’t want to pick a topic that you know nothing about because you will be spending so much time learning about it that you won’t have time to even write your blog.

If you are looking for a niche that is “profitable”…

If you want to make money blogging, you want to choose a niche that is profitable. Good news is, every niche has the possibility of making you money! Although some are easier to profit from than others, depending on how you plan to make your money. Any niche can make money from ads, certain niches such as a food blog may be better at selling physical products such as cookbooks, or kitchen utensils. A niche that covers how to blog might make more off of affiliates, by promoting courses or ebooks. So give some thought to how you want to make your money, and if you aren’t aware of the different options bloggers have to profit from there blog, read 4 Ways that Bloggers Can Make Money.

Blog Niche Examples

Food

Personal Finance

Health & Fitness

How to Make Money

Parenting

Lifestyle

Travel

Personal development

Fashion

Beauty

DIY

Faith

Business

Marriage/Relationship

Technology

What is a domain name?

Your domain name is your web address. It’s very similar to your home address. It’s how people find your site on the internet.

How to choose a domain name for your blog

You want to choose a domain that is…

Memorable

You will get asked by a lot of people, “What’s your blog’s name?” or “How do I find it?” You will also get repeat readers, who happen to come across your site multiple times. If your name is memorable they will realize that they’ve been on your site before. This builds their faith and trust in you as a writer. If they trust you they are more likely to order through your links, share your posts, and even subscribe.

So you want to make sure your blog is memorable. Avoid using numbers, hyphens, and incorrect spelling. For instance, using “4” instead of “for” is a no-no. Also, stick with ‘.com’ because it is the most memorable extension. If someone is going to be looking for your website, they’re more than likely going to assume it ends with ‘.com’.

Relative to your niche

Make sure your domain clearly shows what your blog is about. If you blog about parenting, it would be good to have mom, mommy, motherhood, baby, or anything else relative to being a parent in your domain name. Your domain name will likely be your name on all of your social media accounts.

Bloggers don’t have a lot of time to be going through your account to figure out what you’re all about, but if you go to follow a mommy blogger, and she sees your name as something relative to her niche, she’s likely to think that you are also a mommy blogger and follow you back. But if your social handle is just your name, she’s probably going to think you’re just a genuine follower who is interested in her content, and not follow back.

That being said, there are a lot of super famous bloggers that have their domain name as their first and last name. So it’s definitely possible to grow a great following and become well known. But it’s definitely easier to gain followers in the beginning if your domain name clearly shows your niche.

Appropriate

Make sure your blog name is appropriate. By this I mean do your research first. One of the domain names on my list of choices when I was first starting my blog was “If Mommy Only Knew.” It sounded fine, had the word mommy in it, and then I researched it. Type that phrase into google, and you get a bunch of kiddy porn. Yikes. Glad I did my research.

Type your ideas into google and make sure nothing funny comes up! The last thing you want is to be tied to something totally inappropriate and completely off what you were going for.

Available

Most importantly, the domain name you want has to be available! So come up with a list of names you like, because odds are some of them will already be taken.

To check a domain names availability, click here.

What is an expired domain?

An expired domain is a URL that has previously been used but is no longer registered. You may use an expired domain. There are actually quite a few advantages to using an expired domain, but there can also be disadvantages.

Advantages:

• Backlinks- it could already have backlinks to it from other sites.
• Higher rank on Google- You could rank higher on Google faster, because of the backlinks, but also the domain names age, and previous SEO ranking.
• Increased traffic- Clicks to the expired domain will be redirected to your website.

Disadvantages:

• Spammy backlinks- The backlinks the expired link does have could be spammy links, making your SEO not so great!
• The domain could be blacklisted- Meaning that it’s already destroyed its relationship with Google, and you will have to work 10x harder to get it to ranking well.
• The old domain could be unrelated- The old domain could be totally unrelated to the topic you’re now covering. So you might make some people mad when they’re clicking on your link and not finding what you want. This will cause them to leave right away, increasing your website’s bounce rate

*If you are considering using an expired domain, go to archive.org and search it to make sure it doesn’t contain anything inappropriate, or unrelated.

Well, there you go! I’ve taught you how to choose a domain name for your blog, now it’s time for you to start brainstorming. Start making a list of domain names you like, along with some alternatives just in case what you want isn’t available!

Make sure to comment below with any blogging questions you may have! I would love to help in any way I can as you start your blogging journey.

Related posts:

4 Easy Steps to Starting a Blog

10 Mistakes New Bloggers Always Make

How to Make Money Blogging