10 Things to Consider While Choosing a Domain Name For Your Food Blog
Let me guess! You are now convinced that having your own food blog with its own domain name is the right thing to do for future growth and your own identity. You have made an absolutely right decision and we will help you get started on it right away.
The first step is to find an easy to remember domain name that gives unique identity to your blog. This domain name will also be your blog’s name (though its not a mandatory to have same domain name and blog name but it’s a recommended practice).
First things first – what is domain name?
Domain name for this website is foodviva.com (observe there is no www in front) where foodviva is the brand name and .com is TLD (Top Level Domain). When brand name and TLD are combined together, it becomes a domain name.
10 recommendations to select domain name for your food blog:
1. .com all the way!
We recommend going with .com extension. There are two types of extensionsa) Generic TLDs like .com, .org, .net, etc., andb) Country specific TLDs like .us, .co.uk, etc.
Why only .com?
Out of all generic extensions, .com is most widely used and people tend to assume and type that while browsing. Having any other generic extension for your domain name would make things little difficult for people to find it.
Why not country specific?
All major search engines like google and bing assume that site is suitable only for people from that country if domain name has country specific extension and it will not include it in search results if person is looking for the same content from another country. So unless you are targeting to get visitors only from specific country, we recommend going with .com extension.
2. Short, Catchy and Memorable.
This is a no brainer; the shorter the name, easier it is to remember. The catchy name makes an impression right away and helps you build your brand faster.
3. Easy to Pronounce and Spell.
The name should be easy to pronounce and straight to spell for anyone without making any spelling mistakes. It should be easily sharable by word of mouth.
4. No Hyphens.
Even though you can easily get the domain name that you want with hyphens, there are three reasons for not falling for it
a) Having hyphens in a domain name makes it very difficult to share with someone. E.g telling someone that your new blog name is “my hyphen new hyphen blog dot com” (my-new-blog.com) is difficult and odd.
b) People often forget about typing hyphen. If they can’t find your blog in first attempt they are likely give up finding it immediately.
c) Many search engines and web masters consider websites with hyphenated domains spammy and it takes long time to establish authority.
d) Hyphens make it easier to identify keywords in it and spammers are known to exploit this technique to rank higher in search results. Hyphenated domains may face extra scrutiny for all monetization related applications.
5. Include Topic Keywords
Whether you are trying to get most of the visitors from search engines or via other marketing techniques, it is always helpful to have a keyword about topic of your blog in the domain name. There are two benefits of it.
a) People will easily connect your website to the topic; making it easier to remember.
b) You will get extra benefit from search engine optimization perspective if keyword that people are searching for is present in the domain name.
It is not always necessary to have keywords in the name. If you can think of one and it’s available, go for it otherwise don’t get stuck on it forever.
6. Avoid Numbers
Including numbers in the name significantly improves the chances of availability of domain name but it also makes typing on mobile devices difficult. It may also make your blog name look cheaper. If you still want to include numbers in the name then make sure that it’s not a time specific. E.g. avoid names like food2015.com
7. Open for Extension.
Say at the time of starting a blog, you wanted to blog for your chocolate cookie recipes and you named it like MyChocolateCookies.com but few years down the line you want to publish pizza recipes; now you are boxed. Choose a name that is expandable.
8. Avoid Trademarked and Similar Sounding Names
Including trademarked keywords in domain names is a recipe for disaster and could become a major issue once you get popular. Avoid names that include trademarked keywords in it. You should also avoid names that sound too much similar to competing websites and differ by few characters; E.g. foodista.com (established website) and fooditsa.com. If anyone searches for fooditsa on search engines, they will probably end up going to foodista.com.
9. Clean Domain History
Before you register your new domain name, be sure to check its history. Spammers often run websites for shorter duration and then abandon them once it looses its value after being penalized or banned by search engines. Using domain names with such a spammy history will set you up for a pretty poor start.
How to verify domain history?
One way to verify the history of domain is to check Internet Archive, which is an open source web archive. In addition to this, search in google and other major search engines for the domain name and check for spammy website links. If domain happens to be registered previously, verify whether it was clean and legit website or not.
10. Social Media Presence
Social media presence is very critical to build a loyal visitor base for your food blog and using same name across all social media sites helps build brand. We recommend checking all major social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. for name availability or alternatively use this knowem tool that searches for name availability across all major social media websites with a single click.
What If You Can’t Find Your Desired Domain Name?
Finding a desired .com name that meets all these criteria and still be available for registration can be difficult. Do not get demoralized with this, it’s just a name after all and there are plenty of examples on Internet where websites have been extremely successful even though their names did not meet these recommendations. Not having a blog at all hurts more than having a blog with not so perfect name. Besides, having a perfect name is not a guarantee of success, so move on.
Resources For Brainstorming The Names
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