Selecting a blog name is the foremost step of blogging. Its the backbone decision which actually affects the growth of your blog too.

• In general, a best blog name should reflect the purpose of the blog.

When it comes to blogging, branding and marketing plays a major role (because blog name affects them) than making money. So you have to pay much more attention in this earlier stage especially to select the best blog name.

Exact Keyword As Blog Name.

Keywords are playing the major role in driving natural search engine traffic. Using keywords as blog name is one of the best SEO practice universally accepted by many search engines. You may have noticed many times, if you search in Google or Yahoo with a short keyword, you will end up seeing site names as keywords.

If the keyword you choose has more search volume, its a gold mine. Go ahead and pick them as blog name. Many people are directly entering keywords in their browser URL to locate random web sites.

• For example, if you are starting a blog about painting then the most comfortable blog names “paintingtips”, “paintinghelp”, “paintinguide” etc.

Simplest way, use Google Keywords Tool and enter the keywords which are related to your blog topic (keywords should tell the purpose of your blog). It lists 100′s of more related keywords, select the best 10 and see if that name is available for you. If you got 1 then its a great effort. Its good idea to find keywords which has reasonably higher search volume say, 10000+ per month.

• The advantage of keyword based blog name, you could easily catch the top 10 in SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages). In my theory, these kind of keywords are called “Money Making Keywords”.

Your Own Branding.

Branding your blog is one of the powerful marketing strategy. Establishing a brand in your blog takes time and it depends on numerous factors starting from blog design, fonts, colors, content and much more. More important, blog name plays the top role in branding. Your blog name should reflect the brand name. A simple, short and rhyming blog name is the best branded name.

The advantages of branded name:

• It easily sits into visitors mind and they will remind your blog.
• It helps to get more repeat visitors because they will get addicted to your branding sense.
• Brand name spreads faster when compared to ugly names.

Mimic A Brand Name.

This is short cut to bring in hot blog names. Just by mimicking an established site name as your blog name. This way, people will easily remember your blog and they will give the same feel/importance like the original name.

• For example, you could name your blog as Xaahoo which mimics Yahoo.

Combining Keyword + Branding.

Another way, you could combine the above ideas into one. Like bringing a blog name which has keyword as well a brand name. It has more advantages, when compared to other ways because keyword reflects the blog purpose and brand name gives you the branding touch.

Generally, if you decide for exact keywords you may not get the blog name (because somebody would have already registered it). But either brand name or brand+keyword names in combination’s, you will easily get many options.

Few more tips to select best blog names:

• Use short names
• Use simple, clear names without double words (eg. “paintinguide” is good than “paintingguide”)
• Don’t use hyphens (looks it has no ill effects, apart from tough for visitors to remember)
• Use rhyming and ear-catchy blog names.

image:stefo