Is it all in the name?

So you’ve got your idea(s) for your site or blog, that’s a hard task in itself. I spend a lot of time thinking about sites to make, but that time is worthwhile when you have an idea which really grabs you and makes you both excited and motivated. But now you’ve got to actually make it - and realise what you have in your mind.

Now, many people plan to earn money through advertising - and that is a superb method, one which I’ve been personally trying and using for a while - and is considered a generic method that can work in many circumstances. However, do not plan your site for advertising. As I said previously, you can make money out of empty sites, but that will just add to the rubbish online. Equally, don’t plan to make a web site ‘out of advertising’ as that is all it will become. I could give a hundred examples - some high profile ones - that use excessive advertising, but you’ve already seen them! If advertising is your business model, create your content first and then think about advertising later.

So the next step is to decide what to call your blog or site. I often spend too long on this, so don’t put a huge amount of emphasis on this, but having a good name is important. My personal recommendation for a name is as follows:
- Keep it as short as possible, but don’t sacrifice clarity for length
- It should be easy to remember, at least for regulars. Sorry, ASK and EBAY are already taken, don’t fret if it’s not that easy!
- Where possible, avoid words that can easily be misspelled
- Again, where possible, avoid international misspellings! Such as:

• Color and Colour
• Jewellery and Jewelry and Jewelery!

- Don’t try too hard to be ‘cool’ sounding - it’ll probably sound like it’s been made by an inexperienced newbie! (And even if you are an inexperienced newbie, doesn’t mean people need know that!!)
- Try to include keywords where possible, but don’t stuff your domain/blog name with keywords and make it look either too lengthy or messy
- Acronyms can work, but don’t try too hard - trying to squeeze the meaning of an acronym out of a cool sounding word you’ve thought of may sound lame to many people

So, if you take any of that advice or not, you then have to make sure the name isn’t taken. Lets face it, Google is your friend here - go Google it. Don’t forget to try your name in “double quotes” - and try variations. Example: “doshblog”,”dosh blog”,and dosh blog without quotes. If you get any sites that clearly utilise this name, don’t bother - you’re only going to be treading on toes, if not anything else purely in contending with getting people to your site when they search for you by name - usually a pretty easy task.

Assuming you’ve found a name that isn’t mentioned heavily on Google you have to decide about where you want to host your blog or site - as this influences if you can even get hold of the name you want. In my next article I’ll try and discuss some of the merits of the various ’systems’ (to name a few: Hosting it yourself / hosting it with a provider, Blogger, and various other Blogging systems).

If you chose to host it yourself or get someone else to host it, then you will need to purchase a domain name. Some hosting packages come with free domain names - but don’t be taken too much in by this, as domains only cost £3 / year for .co.uk’s, or about £6 / year for .com’s ($10 / year). If you visit any site that sells domains you’ll be able to check availability - and there’s many sites online purely for checking the availability. However, I prefer to use a program to check the availability en-masse - Domain Name Analyzer. I’ve used this for quite a while now, with relative ease - although I won’t say the interface is the best ever, you do get used to it. If you’re interested in using this program, download and install it and load it up. Click “Names” -> “Add Names” and type in some names (press enter after each one to separate them with a line) and then tick any extensions (Top Level Domains - TLD’s) that you’re interested in. Personally, that’s always “.co.uk”,”.com” and “.net” - but honestly if I can’t get both the “.com” and “.co.uk” I’m rarely interested in “.net”. Press “OK”, then “Selections” -> “Select All” and then “Lookup” -> “All Selected”. It’ll search to find which are available, but have a play - there’s more options in there that I haven’t bothered to look at yet.

A point to note: If your name is registered in one of the TLD’s (like, DoshBlog.com is registered, but DoshBlog.co.uk is available) then check out the domain. If you find it’s not being used (like one of those tacky search pages that are simply trying to get accidental clicks) then you may still consider using your desired name. If the site looks real, and is fairly active - even if it’s not been used for a while, then you should probably think of another name.

One you have a name, get it registered - GoDaddy is one I’ve used and is very reputable. There’s plenty out there - go have a Google if you need another - but that’s my advice. Oh, if it’s “.co.uk” domains you need, you can’t do better than 123-Reg - much cheaper!

You’ll need a web host - GoDaddy offer that service, and I offer hosting if you have some specific details you require - such as the use of my decent logging software - but otherwise services like GoDaddy and EasySpace are perfectly good. My advice is make absolutely sure they support PHP - as this is what most of the decent open-source Blogging and Web Site software is written in, and is quick to get started with.

If you’re using a ’system’ like Blogger, then when you attempt to sign up it’ll give details as to if the name you want to use is available or not. Don’t just add a “1″ on the end to make it ‘unique’!! It’ll look unprofessional, and more than likely means someone else is already using the name actively.

Hopefully by name you’ve got a unique name, that is fairly catchy, relatively easy to remember, isn’t already used all over the net, and it’s registered (or signed up) to you. Is it all in the name? I’m not sure. But I know that a lot of sites would have done a lot better with some of the key names that have dominated our Internet so far! Try to make the name good, but the content is what will really get your site popular - so don’t spend too long worrying about it.

Monday, February 26th, 2007 : General : 1 Comment

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