Focus on branding
Now that you’ve brainstormed some words, sort through them to find the options that match your brand. You can consult your brand style guide to make sure you’re choosing words that fit your brand—if you don’t have a style guide, now is a good time to create it.
It’s important to create a uniquely recognizable brand, that way your customers know your brand by its colors, language, and logo. Maybe your brand is all about elegant design, or perhaps your brand is more rugged and focused on hard work. Make sure the words you choose to use in your blog name reflect your brand and your values as a business.
Look at competitors
One way to get blog name ideas—or to make sure you’re not choosing a name that’s similar to an existing blog—is to look at your competitors’ blogs to see what kind of names they’re choosing. In particular, look at some of the most popular blogs and try to figure out what they have in common.
You don’t want to copy blog name ideas from existing blogs, and looking at competitors’ blogs can help you avoid that. At the very least, you should make sure your blog name—or something very similar—isn’t taken before you launch.
Do a little research
Looking up competitors’ blogs isn’t the only way to research blog name ideas. You can also research keywords to see what kinds of keywords people search for. Including frequently used keywords in your blog name is a good way to make sure you show up in search results. That being said, you may want to avoid trendy terms that people may stop searching for soon, such as currently popular slang words.
Shorten your blog name
Once you’ve got some basic ideas for your blog name, shorten that name to make it more palatable. Short names are generally more effective when it comes to branding, which is one of many reasons why companies like Google and Twitch are so successful. You want a blog name that people can easily mention in conversation, and is easy to search for—so keep it short.
Make sure it’s easy to pronounce
You want people to talk about your blog in the real world and online, and that’s not easy to do if your blog name is difficult to pronounce. Ideally, choose a blog name that’s easy to pronounce in addition to being short, unique, and catchy. This is another reason it’s often better to stick to a short blog name.
If you can help it, avoid using any made-up words in your blog name, and avoid any words that originated from fictional books or movies.
Consider longevity and aesthetics
Once you’ve picked out a blog name you like, consider whether that name is going to remain catchy for a long time. Blog name ideas that involve currently trending topics and slang tend to wear out a little quicker as those trends fade away.
Type your blog name into Google, and type the URL you want into the address bar at the top of your browser. This will give you an idea of how your blog name will look, which is actually more important than you might think.
Make the final call
The next step in naming a blog is to make the final call on the name you want to use. It might take a while to narrow your list down and find a name you really like, but this is a crucial step.