Friday, April 13, 2007

Step 5, How Can I Choose a Good Domain Name and Title for my Blog?

Welcome back!

I'm in a little bit of a wacky mood, so bare with me.


This blog for money article will answer questions like:

How do I choose a domain name for my blog?
How do I choose a title for my blog?
Will any domain name or title work if I want to make money with my blog?



This blog for money article will not answer questions like:

Do Thais' use the explosive gas, hydrogen, in their party balloons to make them float?
I heard a 12 year old blogs and makes money, can my dog blog?



Ok, short blog post for today.


How do you choose a good domain name for your blogging for money blog?

First things first. Everything I talk about on this blog relates to Google since I really believe they have all the components anyone needs to get started blogging AND making money with their blog. That means you. That means me. That means 12 year olds and people without teeth too.

So, since Google owns Blogger.com and they've recently upgraded Blogger to be a great little bloggin' machine. We'll use Blogger.com to setup your first blog.

Once you join Blogger.com and login, they offer you a chance to "create a blog". Actually they offer you many chances because I've created about 25 and there's been no email to me yet saying,


"uhm, my good Google friend... you've recently been OUTED by a wondercog in the Google Machine that tells us you have 25 blogs with us and yet you're only actually blogging on about 10 of those. If you would... if you could... you SHOULD maybe delete some of those subdomains you're tying up so other good Googlers can Google-blog them to good use and keep smileys on their grills."



In plain-speak, stop hoggin' the subdomains VERN!

But, alas, no email yet. So I continue to tie up subdomain names with my "gotta have that one too" attention-deficit disorder fueled compulsion for more blogs.

But, you have not logged into Blogger.com yet, or if you have, I'm ignoring that fact during this post.

We're on the topic of choosing a domain (subdomain name) for your blog.


All blogs on Blogger.com are in the format http://_________.blogspot.com. Your well-chosen subdomain name goes in above the line. There IS a way to use Blogger at your own domain, but that comes in a later post.


In Step 4, " Choosing a Topic for your Blog", you were able to get through that post and come out the other end with a topic. It might have taken you 20 minutes, or 16 hours using the Google Keyword tool, but today you have a topic that you've chosen and are actually quite a bit proud of it I'd imagine.


Domain names for your blog should:

  • Be as short as possible. A rough guideline is 10 or less letters/numbers. I have one with 15: KoSamuiThailand.blogspot.com but it's jammed with the 3 best keywords I could use. Sometimes it's OK if it's recognizeable, especially places.
  • Contain 1 or more keywords that your topic is focused on.
  • Be catchy, clever, smooth, suave, and witty.
  • Never have cuss words or be racially insensitive. (oh, I don't deal with adult type blog information here, so any info you see here relates only to g - pg - and r rated sites. Google treats adult sites differently and it's beyond the scope of Blog Simply! to cover all that.
  • Should not use trademarked names or phrases.
  • Ideally shouldn't use names that are already .com names unless you own it! (example... if www.REDCOTTONTHREAD.com exists. You should probably stay away from naming your site: redcottonthread.blogspot.com - there may be some confusion over that.
  • Not contain dashes, or if you just can't HELP yourself and think you want it - then no more than 1 dash.
  • Contain numbers only if they help identify some feature of the site... I try to stay away from numbers but one time I bought 808stock.com for a stock photography site in Hawaii - and the area code is 808. It caught on well. I sold it. I also had 911dv.com (digital video) right before the 9/11 tragedy. I changed the name quickly after that as you might have guessed.

Research some blogs that have the same topic as the one you chose. Go to Google and enter your topic followed by the word blog or blogspot and you'll find blogs that are competing for visitors on the same topic as you. You could also go to: blogsearch.google.com and just search on your topic. Yeah, try that, "mo bedda" as they say in Hawaii (more better).


Will ANY blog domain name or title still make money?

Sure, it COULD.

You could name your blog"ZipUpYourMouthOrIllstuffFliesInIt.blogspot.com "
and title it, "Kid's Stuff" and the topic of your blog might be, "fly fishing". It COULD work on some level, but seriously bloggers, WHY would you want to do something like that?



How do I choose a good title for my blog?

Copy the blog name if you have a keyword in it. For example. My blog domain is named "BlogSimply.blogspot.com". I chose to name my blog, "Blog Simply!" because I already have my main keyword, "blog" in the domain name, and now it is in the title for my blog. It is a VERY short and simple title, which yours should be too.

Why?

The way Google magic works is thusly...

Google loves to see good titles of posts that you create for your blog articles. The Google Machine gives you Google Points for having titles that reflect the topic of the content you wrote about that day.

Google takes the name of your SITE and blends it together with the name of the title of your post for that day and creates a title for the post in the very top of your browser (if you have Internet Explorer or FireFox browsers).

My site for instance. My site is named, Blog Simply. My post for today is named, "Step 5, How can I Choose a Good Domain and Title for my Blog".

The Google Machine will change things so that now you're real title - the one that means something to Google is, "Blog Simply!: Step 5, How Do I Choose a Good Domain and Title for my Blog?" This blend of your blog title name and the title of your blog post is called a, "Dynamic title". Google does this for all your blog posts.


"And, that's a good thing. Be happy that Google cares enough about you to blend you up a title that will bring you lots of Google Love and Google Points."

and Vern said,
"For Google so loved the world that she gave us an abundance of ways to gather Google Love and Google Points so that we may know that THIS is the most beautiful time in internet history..."


Hahhahah. Sorry, I told you, wacky mood today.
Not drinking that 6% alcohol Thai beer (Singha) either.
This is just me.



Now then. Google does not like to see a HUGE title. In fact, some say that Google stops looking at your title if it's longer than 12 words. Some say 10. Some used to say 8 or 9.
What do I think? I have no idea. But, I think that it must look at 15. I try to keep mine below 15. If it's indexed, it's indexed. If not, I'm not going to worry about it.

One can worry about far too much in this blogging for money arena. Let's not worry how many words Google looks at, can we agree to that?

That's just one particular that I don't worry about. You might find some other particular that YOU don't worry about either. It's OK. Nobody gets it 100%. Well, somebody does, but you'd pay them with fingers and first-borns and there's no sense taking this game to that level.

Just:
  • Pick yourself a good domain name.
  • Pick yourself a good title for your blog for money site and let's get going.
  • I'm anxious to get to the meat here.


Review...

Pick a short domain name and title that reflect your topic in a way that is catchy, and contains some, or at least one, main keyword.



Remember:
  • Keywords are better than no keywords.
  • Catchy is better than boring.
  • Keywords are better than Catchy.
  • Keywords and catchy are pretty good. Hence, "BlogSimply"; "Problogger"; "Blogger"; "Blogit"; "WebBlogs"; "Bloggity".
  • Keywords and keywords that sound catchy or, are a name or a place, work very well... hence, "KoSamuiThailand.blogspot.com"

and Vern said,

"Remember, we are all Google's children and we help each other. We write our blogs to make others smarter and happier for having visited our blogs."


Prior post Step 4, What Topic Should I Blog About to Make Money?

Next post Step 6, How Much Money Does a Blog Cost?


Again, if you have ANY questions at all about whether the topic or domain name or title of your blog is, "OK", post a COMMENT below and I'll let you know what I think. Hopefully other readers will chime in with their opinions also.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting post! I would like to see a lot more of your writing style. It seems like almost everyone just posts hype and doesn't teach anything.

Thanks much!

Admin said...

Hi Courtney, Thanks a lot! I'm hoping that someone likes it. The info has been presented so much but so boring for most people. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it all interesting enough that we'll get some more people blogging and making money. Who knows? You know? I don't know... lol - Vern

Amy said...

I did not find it boring I am just beginning. Thank's, I'm sure I will be back.
Amy