Choosing a good blog URL is really important task! People will get to your blog by either clicking a link or typing your URL into their browser's address bar, so you need to have a catchy URL that people will remember.
When you first start building traffic most of your visitors will get to your blog by clicking a link. However, over time when people get hooked on your content they will type your URL into the address bar and you want it to be easy.
Here are some tips for how to choose a good blog URL.
A good blog URL should be easy to pronounce. When people get hooked on your content and tell their friends about it you don't want there to be any confusion.
See what I mean? MyBlogTutor.com is much easier to pronounce than the URLs listed above.
The first step to choosing a good blog URL is to make it easy to pronounce.
A good blog URL should be easy to remember. Again, when you tell people about your blog you don't want them to forget how to get to it.
Let's look at each of these traits in more detail.
We already talked about this, but another benefit of having a URL that is easy to pronounce is that it is easier to remember.
Ask 5 people if the your URL ideas are easy to pronounce.
A URL that is short and to the point is easy to remember. Is it easier to remember MyBlogTutor.com or StevesBlogThatProvidesTipsAndTricksForYourBlog.com?
If your URL is more than 15 characters long, it's not short enough.
BurritoChef.com is a better domain name than GourmetBurritoCookingGuy.com, but GBCG.com would be too short and confusing.
Remove as many unnecessary words as possible from your URL then ask 5 people if your URL is confusing. If they find it confusing, try again.
MyBlogTutor.com explains that the content of this blog is tutorials about how to build a blog. StevesBlogStuff.com kind of describes what could be on that website, but doesn't do as good a job. What kind of blog stuff does it have? Themes? Tutorials? Free Images?
Ask 5 people what they think the blog at your potential URL is about. If they get it wrong, try again.
A good blog URL avoids using hyphens (-), underscores (_), and numbers. These three characters make it more difficult to spell and remember your blog URL so don't use them.
Numbers make a blog URL really hard to remember and spell. If I told you that my blog's URL was Steves2ndBlog.com, would you know how to spell it? Would you spell "2nd" with the number two or would you spell out "second"? Maybe I also have a lot of blogs, so would you remember that it's my second, or would you forget and think it's my third?
Don't even consider ideas for a blog URL that have hyphens, underscores, or numbers in them.
There are a lot of extensions your URL can end with, like .org .net .blog .biz .info and so on. Even today .com is the most common so you should try to only use .com for your blog URL.
If I told you my blog's URL was MyBlogTutor.biz and you tried to remember it a week later would you be able to? You would probably try .com first and then give up when it wasn't there.
And if I told you my blog URL was MyBlogTutor.info wouldn't you think it was a bit spammy? I almost never click URLs for websites that are .info or .biz.
Since there are a lot of websites online these days, many URLs ending with .com might already be taken. In this case you might need to come up with a new idea for your blog URL.
Try to only end your blog URL with .com so it is easier to remember and looks more legitimate.
When you are choosing your blog URL, try to come up with something original. There is already an online bookstore called Amazon so don't name your blog AmazonStore.com.
If you told someone your blog URL was AmazonStore.com they would likely go to Amazon.com instead. Even worse, Amazon.com might be able to sue you for infringing on their business name.
Tip: Come up with a URL that is not too similar to someone else's URL.
It's important to have a simple, memorable blog URL so people can type it into their browser with ease. After reading this post you should have a framework for understanding what makes a good blog URL. The next step is to go buy one, so when you get that done be sure to let me know what your new URL is!