Up to this point you been given tons of information to digest.
Starting today we are getting technical with actionable steps.
Your are going to choose a domain name.
Please don’t get all worked up about this. In the grand scheme of things having a awesome domain is not important. If you speak to 7-figure bloggers they will tell you it really doesn’t matter.
Because in the end, your content matters so much more.
But I get it you are interested in having a cool name for your blog go for it.
When I came up with IMReviews.co.
I have originally envisioned a review site on different online making opportunities. IM is short for Internet Marketing
That’s it. It took me all of about 5 minutes to decide.
You can spend more time deciding than I did. But you need to promise me you won’t spend more than 30 minutes today coming up with one.
Back on day 2. You decided on the niche for your blog.
If you haven’t here is the lesson because you will need to have a niche to go forward with this lesson.
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If you are reading from this point on. I am assuming your niche is ready to go.
The step by step instructions are below. But I wanted to give you a few pieces of advice. To keep mind, given to me about choosing a domain.
The first piece of advice: Don’t buy a taken domain name
Most of your awesome ideas for a blog name have likely been taken.
I know I know it sucks. But life isn’t over.
I say this kindheartedly because I don’t want you to be upset when you see it is. Somebody came up with the same idea as you and beat you to the punch.
And what’s really grinding your gears…
Is you visited the site to learn it hasn’t updated the site in months.
The alternate situation is the domain is actually owned by a domain squatter. These are people who purchase domains for the sole purpose of selling them down the line for a big profit.
But under no circumstances do you buy a website from these people.
Like I said, in the long run, your content will be more important than your actual domain name.
The second piece of advice: Get a .Com or a .Co
There are dot.everythings coming out. Like literally we talking about imreviews.club, imreviews.fitness, imreviews.live, or even im.reviews. You get the point its beyond ridculous.
After .Com being the only thing around for so long. Its become a staple. People unconsciously take your site more seriously when they see a .Com
Unfortunately, a lot of .coms have been sucked up too. So your next bet is .Co.
That’s how I ended up with a .Co. The .Com wasn’t available.
(Side note: I will confess I do have .digital in my vault lol. This was one of my first sites. The .com and .co were already taken in my defense.)
The third piece of advice: Make it easy to remember
Because you don’t want to have your audience stumbling on how to remember the name. And also it makes easy for you to believe or not!
The fourth piece of advice: Make it easy to type
You don’t want to lose traffic to your site because your domain is too confusing to type. Or even worse leads people to a different site with the misspelling.
The fifth piece of advice: Make it easy to say
This way if you telling someone about the site or it is referred. You want there to be no confusion. Because you know how things get easily lost in translation.
The last piece of advice: Make it look exactly what it means
The last thing you need is your domain name coming off inappropriate or embarrassing. Unless that’s what you going for.
For example:
Penisland.net is not what you think… it’s for Pen Island lol.
Yea… they dropped the ball on that one.
Without further ado, let us choose your domain name.
The Step-by-Step Process:
Step 1. Make a list of keywords that are related to your chosen niche.
The list doesn’t have to belong. But you always better off with some options.
Step 2. Open a tab to this site called namevine.com.
This is a pretty cool site. It lets you plug in your keywords. Once you do it will let you know if the .Com is available. It goes further and literally gives you dozens of suggestions for a domain name.
What’s even cooler it will let you know if the name is also available on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This is great for branding purposes.
Step 3. Open Thesaurus.com in a tab (optional).
Only in case, you couldn’t come up with anything. Or didn’t like what came up on namevine.
If that’s the case throw in the words you came up with in Step 1. To come up with even more ideas.
Step 4: Open namecheap.com in a tab.
Note: Namevine.com most likely asked you to choose what site you would most likely be using to buy the domain name. You can choose anyone to gain access to the site. But this for an affiliate commission. Its how they keep running this site for free. Now to purchase a domain name. It will run you anywhere from $10 – $15 for a year. The reason I like namecheap.com is 2 reasons. For one they only specialize in domain names. And two the throw in WhoisGuard for free.
This is a privacy protection service that prevents people from seeing your name, address, phone number, and email when they do a Whois search on your domain. So aka they stop people from spamming you. Or even worse use your info for identity theft.
Trust me I didn’t want to pay the cost for my first couple sites on Godaddy… Never again.
If you want to save yourself the 10-15 bucks you can sign up with Bluehost who will throw in the domain name free. But you will have to pay for WhoisGuard.
Thats it you are set!
Tomorrow we will discuss picking a web host and setting up your domain as a WordPress site.
– Willie