Learn/Name-Your-Blog

Your Blog's Name: An Extension of Your Brand

Before you bother with the details of setting up your blog, think about its domain name. What looks good in the address bar? What rolls easily off the tongue in conversation? What jives with your brand in a memorable way?

There are two parts to a blog's moniker: The domain name and the title of the blog. If the blog is the main feature of the website, the title of the blog and the domain name can be one in the same. SiliconFlorist.com is about the technology scene in Portland, Oregon. Its branding is a clever play on the "Silicon Forest" nickname given to the tech hotbed in California. If your blog is attached to an existing website, either as a sub-domain or as another page, the title should tell visitors what to expect. Blog.UrbanAirship.com is titled "Recent News", so it is safe to assume that company news is the theme of the blog. The company's branding carries over with uniform styling and menu structure.

Domain Name and Title of Your Blog

If your blog will not be your company's only web presence, consider connecting the blog to your main website. Visitors to your site will find the blog easily, and your brand will naturally carry over to the blog. Blogger.com (formerly Blogspot.com) is part of the Google.com suite of applications, and the the relationship is immediately apparent in the domain name of the official Google.com blog, GoogleBlog.BlogSpot.com.

You can do something similar by creating a sub-domain of your website, which would not require the purchase of another domain name:

Creating a sub-domain also has technical advantages for webmasters and systems administrators. We won't dig into those too deeply here, but you can read more about sub-domains -insert article name here-.

Another way to attach a blog to your website is by simply creating another page. The address will look like this:

If you hope for the blog to bring SEO benefit, having a page rather than a sub-domain may be a better option.

Naming Stand-Alone Blogs

If a blog will be your organization's main web presence, you don't need to call it a blog in the domain name. ReadWriteWeb.com covers internet industry news in blog format. Calling it "ReadWriteWebBlog.com" would be redundant, and an awful lot to type into a browser's address bar.

Be creative, but remember that it is an extension of your brand. Spring for a domain name that is memorable, not too long, and has you written all over it. If the name you want is already registered to someone else, don't be afraid to contact the owner and negotiate a deal.

Blogging Services and Domain Names

Third-party blogging services typically have their own domain naming conventions. One such service, the popular TypePad.com, assigns the domain name "Name.TypePad.com". You can override this feature by mapping a different domain name to your TypePad.com blog. Mapping requires some technical expertise, and is explained in a blogging service's FAQ section. However, domain mapping often isn't a free service -- it will cost you at least $8.95 per month at TypePad.com.