7 STEPS on How to come up with a blog name (incl. Blog Name Ideas)

How to come up with a blog name? 
Here is a step by step process to get inspired, generate blog name ideas and choose the best blog name for you.

From understanding what makes a good blog name, to identifying words and checking availability... How to name a blog!

Ready to start your blogging journey?

How to come up with a blog name

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The method listed below can work for Fashion blog names, travel blog names, parenting blog names, .... all niches!

STEP 1 - Understand Blog Name Impact

The fact that many of the short catchy domain names with keywords are already taken. And it can be frustrating to find a great blog name.

Because You want the PERFECT blog name. ​I. GET. IT.

But how critical is choosing the right blog name for its success?

The reality is not that critical. The most important for the success of your blog is creating GREAT content and promoting it.

For exemple

• A blog with a name that looks perfect such as "Ice Skating Success" will go nowhere if the content behind is not good
• And a blog with fantastic content can work despite a strange name that at first does not make you think of the niche or looks too long or too complex etc... the most successful blog (that have monetized their blogs) have all kinds of names: strange words (Avocadu.com), sentences (Making sense of Cents), their own names... (see more examples in Step 3)

So generally, as long as you follow the requirements we will see in Step 2, you should be ok whatever your name.

So why should I bother?

It is not critical, but it is important to you. You want to be able to like your personal blog name for a very long time - because changing blog name with a real pain.

So it is critical so that YOU DON'T REGRET IT! You want to keep it for life 🙂

Your blog name is mostly important for you. Because readers will understand or prononce it differently anyway. You should love it and be proud of what stands behind that name.

STEP 2 - Understand Requirements for Good blog Names

So true, your Blog Name is not the most critical for your success but you should still consider a few recommendations as you go into finding blog name ideas.

Below as some criteria for Good blog names

• PRONOUNCABLE - because if someone cannot read it, they cannot remember it and talk about it to their friends

• SPELLABLE - Same if you want people to find your name and social media when they hear about it, they need to be able to spell it

Don't forget for example that American and English people tend to spell some words differently..

• UNIQUE - make sense no?

I know this is obvious but I want to still lay it out there. Even if the domain is available make sure this is not the name of a product or something else (see step 6)... people will get confused.
And don't just add a letter or an hyphen to a name already existing. Be yourself!

• CONCISE - for SEO and for Memory

I often see new bloggers choose a long sentence as the name of their blog. That can be fun but it is not practical because:

- For SEO it will push your keywords further from the start
- For people to remember and find your blog, it could be difficult
- it is really HARD to insert it on small BUSINESS CARDS!!!!​ 🙂

• POSITIVE - it seems obvious, but better to still state it - even if you talk about something sad you can give a feeling of movement and progress. 

STEP 3 - Consider Types of Blog Name Ideas

Here are the different types of Blog Names ideas you can have:

OPTION 1 - YOUR OWN NAME

• PROS - you can put any type of content under it + you create a brand for yourself
• CONS - it does not say what it is about - your are on the first line of fire in case of issue 
• Note - it works only if you have a unique name 🙂
• Examples - TimothySykes.com on Finance or Gary Vayberchuck or general business life

OPTION 2 - DESCRIPTIVE

• PROS - the reader knows what the blog is about - good for SEO with keywords
• CONS - Can turn generic
• Examples - Smart Passive Income or The Poor Traveler or Daily Blog Tips

OPTION 3 - MIX Name and Descriptive

• PROS - Feels friendly to the reader, like following the advice of a friend - Can have a keyword for SEO
• CONS - For personality blog only - It has become a bit cliché - People have to remember your name
• Examples - Nomadic Matt in travel or Naturally Ella in food blogging

OPTION 4 - CREATED WORD

• Pros -Originality, Very unique, Strong Branding
• Cons - Not so easy to find one - can leave people perplex
• Examples - create a word that makes sense like Problogger.com or something crazier like Migrationology.com (in travel)

OPTION 5 - EXTENSION WORD 

• Pros - Good for SEO - often short
• Cons - Hard to find an available option - limiting if very specific keyword
• Examples - Backlinko.com, the SEO blog playing on Backlinks the root of SEO

OPTION 5 - CREATIVE BLOG NAMES - IMAGE / HUMOUR / PLAY ON WORDS

Or you can find creative blog names - You can use an image to represent what you do, play on words, combine the unexpected, use a joke or slang...

• Pros - Really shows personnality - can be very unique and memorable
• Cons - less inclusive if the humor is very specific 
• Examples - Hippie in Heels (travel) or Goats on the Road (travel) or Fishnets and Rainbows (fashion) or Sprouted Kitchen (Food)

OPTION 6 - Use an Acronym

• Pros - Short
• Cons - If you are not big, no one remembers you

STEP 4 - Generate Related Words

Of course before you can start finding a name for your blog you must have first narrow down the focus to a niche and strategize what it will be about. I will write another article about that.

Now that you understand all your options and what makes good blog names, let's head to you, your blog and your audience.

Time to start the Brainstorming session

1. Start a document with the following columns:

• You
• Your Niche
• Your Audience
• Your Blog
• Your Audience
• Similarities

2. List all the words that you can think about for each columns

• You - who are you, what are your personality traits, how do people call you and talk about you...
• Your Niche - all terms related to your niche that you can think of...
• Your Audience - who are they, how do they feel, what benefits will they get from the blog...
• Your Blog - what is is about, how are you approaching your subject, do you have a method...
• Similarities - can you imagine other things around the world that create similar benefits? e.g. cocoon and butterfly, working of a Magnet, Bees and honey... this can be harder, just try to find a couple 

3. Open a thesaurus and search for synonyms to add to the lists. You can also find slang words. You can also look though lists of descriptive words to help find more ideas.

Example

Here is a short examples with just a few ideas to show you what I mean:

How to come up with a blog name

STEP 5 - Create Blog Name Ideas Shortlist

And now that you have a big list of word ideas, it is time to mix and match!

Have fun, try different combinaisons.

This is something you can do with other people. You will have a good laugh with some of the things that do not match.
And asking someone to go through it with you is a really good idea, to see how it sounds to someone else.

Now create a Potential blog Names list with all those which attract you.

Example

In the example listed above it could go:

• Olympics 101
• Fit for the Olympics
• Olympic Sport Fan
• Your Gold Medal

• Wanabee Olympian
• Eric's Flame
• Olympus Obsession
• Olympology
• ...

STEP 6 - Check Availability 

Now that you have a good list of potentials, you have to check if they are still available.

Recherche Internet

First do a research to see if something already has the same name: a website, a product, a service...

Choice of website extension

If you can't find any, think about the extension you would like. For english speaking internation websites better to go for the .com.

If you write for your local market, use your country extension: .fr for France​ - .ca for Canada.

Occasionally some play with .info or to reduce the size of their URL or .Site .Tech .biz. For example in our example earlier, we could go Olympics.info for all the latest info about the Olympics...

Availability of the Domain name

Check the availability of the Domain. For that you have to find a Domain Registrar like Bluehost below (but which does not do country specific).

For countries extensions, have a look at 1&1 Domains and select your country.

If it is not available just let it go!!!! I know it is hard but don't try to find a way to get around with extra letters or hyphens. Just move one. Your name will come to you.

Before finding the idea of StructurInfo, I really ​really wanted Connect the Dots. I love that expression and this is what I love doing. But so many things exists with that sentence. I first bought connectthedots-solutions!!!! what a waste of money. So long and not unique... but I was fixated. Luckily I let it go and found this new name that I really love. 

Availability of the Social Media Handles

Last stop, you may want to check that the social media handles are available.
Social Media Handles = Names in Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Pinterest...

It is not critical as you can play with those names, but it is always better to be consistent across all.​

STEP 7 - Choose a blog name 

Now time to decide.
Don't overthink it. Maybe ask a few persons around you but know that opinion will greatly vary. The most important is that you like it.

SO NOW, PURCHASE THE DOMAIN!!!!!!

You can just purchase the domain by itself at a domain registrar like BlueHost or 1&1.

Or you can already select your hosting company and if they do both you can purchase both at once. (will talk more about that in another article)

I would love to hear about your fantastics blog names in the comments 🙂

Love Pinterest - Here are more Pins to choose from: