How to Create a Domain Name for Your Blog That Drives Traffic

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Choosing a domain name for your blog is one of the most important parts of starting your new venture. It’s a simple item, but it can affect your SEO, your branding, and your traffic for better or for worse. When it comes to blogs, there can be a lot more freedom in how creative you are with your domain than with businesses, but many of the same challenges apply.

Before you settle on your domain name, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net recommends considering your traffic sources. He names three sources of possible incoming traffic to your blog:

  1. Loyal Readers – As a new blogger, you probably don’t have any loyal readers yet, but let’s assume that this category also encompasses people who come to your website through typing in the exact URL. Your friends and family fall under this section, as well as any other sources of traffic that aren’t online (like business cards).
  2. Search Engines – This is where your SEO efforts come into play.
  3. Referral Traffic – Social media, backlinks, guest posting, RSS feeds, and email newsletters all fall into this category.

It’s important to recognize what your biggest sources of traffic will be. For many lifestyle bloggers, visitors come mainly from social media or loyal readers. For business blogs, search engine traffic will be vital. And all blogs want to foster loyal readers.

While there aren’t any hard and fast rules to picking the ideal domain name, there are a few guidelines that generally help new bloggers:

  1. Make your domain name the name of your “brand” or blog. It’s hard to go wrong with this concept: making your blog name and domain name the same can eliminate confusion and make your URL easy for visitors to remember. Of course, you might want to consider making your blog name optimal for SEO and gaining traffic if you decide to use it for your domain name as well.
  2. Use keywords. Putting a relevant keyword from your niche or industry is a great way to gather search traffic.
  3. Short and easy to remember is the way to go. If your visitors can remember your name and easily type it into their search bar, they’re more likely to return. When it comes to making a memorable domain name, you might decide to sacrifice keyword opportunities for branding ones. “Google” is the best example of this: “Google” is an easy, short, memorable word, though it doesn’t describe its function at all.
  4. Use your name. Personal bloggers may want to consider using their own name as their domain. It’s easy to remember and it establishes you as the expert. It also has the added bonus of making sure you have control over that domain before someone else snatches it up. However, be warned: using your own name does limit the possibility of adding multiple contributors to your blog in the future.
  5. Pick “.com” instead of other Top Level Domains. You have the option of picking other URL endings, like “.net” or “.org,” but “.com” is the most common. Other TLDs have different connotations to them, such as businesses or other institutions. And most importantly, your traffic is highly likely to search for “.com” rather than the correct URL – and you don’t want to miss out on any readers.
  6. Buy up all the other TLDs as well. Yes, “.com” is the best, but if you have “secret” domains, you can direct all traffic to your one blog. This way, competitors and spammers won’t buy up names that are too similar to yours and confuse potential readers.
  7. Avoid letters that confuse. This means letters that invite misspellings and get your traffic lost, such as duplicate letters or homophones that aren’t clear. You might want to avoid using “kar” instead of “car” or other creative spellings as well.
  8. Run a few choices by your friends and family first. Having another perspective will alert you to any problems your potential name might have.

Before you get your heart set on a domain name, make sure you search for it and make sure it isn’t already bought or in use. You can search for an active website by typing in the URL, or you can search for a purchased domain name with any domain registrar. Once you’ve decided on your final domain name, you can buy it through a domain registrar and pick your hosting!

Sources:

Rowse, Darren. “Choosing the Domain Name for your Blog.”http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/16/choosing-the-domain-name-for-your-blog/. (25 April 2014).

“Tips and Tools to Pick the Best Domain for Your Blog.” http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/tips-and-tools-to-pick-the-best-domain-for-your-blog/. (25 April 2014).

3 Guest Blogging Myths That Haven’t Died in 2015

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You may have heard the rumors, but guest blogging isn’t dead.

Many successful bloggers continue to use it as a strategy to gain credibility and attention for their own sites and online marketers believe it’s here to stay. Floating misconceptions about guest blogging halted its popularity last year, but with the right intentions, it is still an effective marketing tool.

Late January of last year, Google engineer Matt Cutts declared on his blog that guest blogging was over. He later revised his statement, clarifying that he was referring to ‘spammy’ posts written solely for SEO purposes. However, his post still created a hesitancy toward guest blogging in general, resulting in a steady decline in what was once a growing practice just a few months earlier.

The timeline below details Google searches for the term “guest blogging” over time. It spiked when Cutts wrote his post, and you can see the decline still continues today.

Guest BloggingDoes this mean guest blogging isn’t as effective as it once was?

The answer is of course not – when used properly, guest blogging is just as effective today as it ever was. In Cutts’ revised statement he said:

“There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). I changed the title of this post to make it more clear that I’m talking about guest blogging for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.”

The reason guest blogging took such a hit in popularity is because many people were using it as a spam service or to get links for their own website. A rising number of spammers published generic or irrelevant guest posts to boost traffic and get links

To combat this problem and offer better search results to its users, Google updated its algorithm to weed out sites that misuse guest blogging. Joshua Steimle, CEO of the internet marketing agency MWI, wrote that he believes Google will only devalue low-quality posts that contain an abnormal amount of links and keyword-rich text.

If guest blogging isn’t good for SEO purposes, then how will it benefit my site?

 Guest blogging still offers plenty of benefits to publishers and writers, but only if they avoid reproducing the ‘spammy’ posts mentioned above. Links are still a valuable source of traffic, but that doesn’t mean your posts have to be full of them to work.

Marketing writer Louis Gudema was able to take his company’s website from being buried under millions of search results to being number one by guest blogging. He wrote for several authoritative sites and built connections with other site owners (and their followers), which generated a huge push of traffic to his site.

Guest blogging is a win-win scenario. For writers, it offers free publicity, added credibility, and social media shares from followers of sites that have a large following in your niche market. And with some editing and selectivity, site owners benefit from guest posts as they will have less to write each week and can easily curate diverse content for their blogs.

But won’t my site be penalized for guest blog posts on Google’s search rankings?

It’s a commonly held misconception, but Google has no intention of penalizing authors for gaining traffic from quality, original content they’ve written for a relevant site. However, it is possible for your site to be penalized if you’re writing for links or less-than-credible sites.

The easiest way to avoid being penalized is to stop thinking about how you can get links from other sites, and instead think of ways you could increase your website’s traffic through guest posts. More traffic will lead to more links in the long run, so don’t worry if your blog post is published with a “nofollow” link.

When asked about the role of guest blogging in 2015, Blogging.org founder Zac Johnson had this to say:

“If you are guest blogging on other sites, make sure the quality is there. Don’t worry about the link back, as you should always have a full author bio at the bottom of the post. Focus on article quality and always link to real resources and examples. Follow these tips and you will continue to see guest blogging be one of your best marketing and branding platforms.”

The Big Picture

Guest blogging isn’t dead, if anything it’s been revived. Guest posts will become more valuable in 2015 as they are chosen selectively by publishers, crafted by experts in their field, and are written for content rather than SEO purposes. If you want to increase your audience and outreach for your website, consider guest posting effectively. You can’t be punished for great original content, and your website will benefit from the added visibility of a site with a larger following.

We’d like to know your experience as a guest blogger – What did you learn from the experience? Any advice you’d like to share to fellow bloggers? Let us know in the comment section below!