[This is a post by a famous domainer, Shane Cultra. Shane has been in the domain business since 2005. His words are gold and he is kind enough to contribute his thoughts on how to choose a good name for your up and coming blog. There will be no special emphasize on keywords in this post as my respect for Shane. You can read about his domain pursuit in DomainShane.com. Meanwhile, enjoy...]

So you’ve decided to start a blog. If you’re like most new blog writers, you get caught up in picking out a name before you even type a word. You’ll soon find out that picking out a name is the easiest part of the job.

When it comes to picking a blog name I have one simple rule. Hand register the name. There is no sense paying money for a great name because you will be writing almost every day and that will give a huge advantage over static sites that are never updated. A good site name only makes it easier to remember but people remember even the craziest names if they love your site.

Pick a name that is personal. Perhaps even your name with the word blog behind it. Make sure they can tell what the focus of the site is going to be in the title. Don’t make it too hard to say, spell, or remember. If you are going to write about modems then you can make up words like modemizer or modemcodem (not sure if those are taken or not). It doesn’t have to make sense it just has to be memorable.

Picking a name also determines if your blog is something you want to sell eventually. If you name it after yourself you will have trouble selling your site because once you leave the site has no value. I usually decide how personal the site is going to be right up front so I can choose my name accordingly. My personal blog on domaining has my name in the brand. DomainShane.com . I will never be able to sell it because it has Shane in the title. It was a conscious decision I made up front but you will need to do this as well.

If you plan on selling items on your site, it’s not a bad idea to put the product in the name as well. Be careful to not pigeonhole yourself as you may not be selling that product forever and move onto something else. Johns Record Players is probably not an appropriate name today but was a great name 40 years ago. With technology changing so fast it doesn’t take long to make things absolute.

Finally, stick to the dot com. People go to dot com first. Your first instinct is to end up taking another ending because your first choice of a name was taken in the dot com. Don’t. Find another dot com. You are just giving traffic away to the dot com. No matter how creative you think your hack is, the dot com would have been better.

I have plenty of examples to let you know if you follow the advice above you will have a great start to your blog. Remember, no matter how great the name you chose for your blog, if you don’t put up good, regular, content the site will struggle. So put your personality and your creativity into your site and your name and you’ll have a great time regardless of the income your produce.