When you create a free website on WordPress.com, your site’s default address will look something like example.wordpress.com. When you’re ready to build your professional presence, buying a custom domain — such as yourgroovydomain.com — is a great next step to personalizing your site and carving out a space for your business online.
You can register a domain in a few clicks, but choosing the right name for your site can be a challenge. Here are a few tips to consider before you settle on a domain name.
Choose a Domain that Represents Your Website
If you’re a professional such as a freelancer, artist, or consultant, your domain should represent who you are or what you do. You can claim your own name as a URL or incorporate your profession in your domain.
Elizabeth Hunter is a fantasy and paranormal romance author. Her domain, elizabethhunterwrites.com, includes her name and hints at what you’ll find on her website.
Your business domain should be consistent with your business name and branding across social media platforms. Take a peek at comedy blog The Annual: they registered theannualonline.com, which is in line with their name, branding, and overall purpose.
Choose an Easy Name to Remember
Your domain name should be easy to say and remember. Domains that are long or difficult to spell might confuse your customers instead of getting them to your website. Puns can be fun, but not at the expense of clarity. If it takes more than seven seconds to explain your domain, it’s probably too confusing.
Visual artist Emily Jeffords blogs at beautifulhelloblog.com, which is both easy to say aloud and read on paper.
Chaitanya Chunduri runs the marketing blog brandednoise.com, a simple and clever combination that’s easy to retain.
Make Sure It’s Available
Don’t panic if the domain you want is already taken! In addition to popular Top Level Domains like .com and .net, WordPress.com offers other extensions, including .org, .co, .me, .biz, and more.
Richard Gendal Brown, a professional in the field of technology and global financial markets, blogs at gendal.me. He snagged a short and relevant URL using the .me extension, which looks both personal and professional.
A fun trend in domains is getting creative with extensions. Well-known sites like deli.cio.us, the social bookmarking site, and bit.ly, the link-shortening tool, make use of unique extensions beyond .com. Our very own staff member Michelle Weber made her extension a part of her photoblog’s full domain name picturesofthin.gs.
If you register the perfect domain name, don’t let it expire accidentally. You can set up annual automatic renewal for your WordPress.com domains. Renewals are processed 30 days before the domain expires, so you’ll get a heads up if there’s a problem with your payment.
Ready to take the next step? Claim your personal web address through WordPress.com. We streamline the registration, mapping, and setup process so your new address is up and running in no time.
Whatever you choose, always be sure to double-check spelling before you confirm registration. Already have a domain registered elsewhere? Find out how to map it to your WordPress.com website.
Planning on Turning Your Website into a Lean Mean Marketing Machine?
Our Premium and Business plans include a custom domain and loads of other features like access to premium themes, advanced customization, more space for your photos and videos, and stellar customer support.
Try a plan for 30 days. (Note that for the domain registration-related portion of the upgrade, the refund window is 48 hours.)
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Some people register an artist name or product brand name, wishing good traffic.
This is not allowed, as you could be sued for bad faith.
Excellent point, thanks!
Should your domain name AND website name be the same?
In most cases you would want your business name, website name, and domain name to match. If taken, you could do like The Annual and Beautiful Hello did and add a word like “online” or “blog” in your domain. However, there are situations in which you might register one or several domains different from your website name, like common misspellings or fun alternatives. For example, techcrunch.com also registered tehcrunch.com, and Quartz can be found at qz.com.
Good post. I am planning to build one as translator and international trade expert. Some of the ideas for names that came into my mind were: 2. tradcomex, traducext, tradext, bsptraducciones… what do you think of them? Trad corresponding to translation in spanish and ext for “comercio exterior” = international trade. Thanks.
If your target market is Spanish speaking, then this is easily understood and would seem relevant. However, not being one who speaks Spanish, they all seem confusing to me and therefore the name is irrelevant and would be difficult to remember
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If I were to sign up for something like that, I’d make sure my name was available also in Twitter, Instagram and other, major social services.
Great tips. Yes domain name should be easy to remember and say what the blog is about. Keeping these points in mind, I got the domain life11.org for my blog Life11, which is about lifestyle brands. Though the word brand is missing but its easy to recall.
I think lifestylebrands.com, if not already taken, would be a slam dunk. Life11 doesn’t really target your niche with resounding clarity. That’s what I’m looking for in a name for my new business but it’s not easy to do and availability is always an issue. Good luck with your biz!
You’re right..usually it happens that you would find the best fit names are generally not available. So one has to go with the best that is available + a name that’s easy to recall. Thanks for your wishes.
I think it’s good to have the domain and the brand title be the same because it helps people find your website easier. I love my domain. It tells the reader about the blog,but just enough to make them want to learn more!
I really support the idea of using a domain name that your visitors can easily remember. I’ve found out that the shorter the better.
it is always best to use your actual name or use the same name for you social media this way if people are searching for it’s easier, and are more likely to find you quicker.
For my domain name, Respectedmenace69, I went to wu-tang name generator on google. Its pretty fun if you want to try it out.
I spent ages trying to ‘dream up’ a catchy domain name, something to explain to a reader what I was about……….. they were all @@@@!
I’m deciding whether to change my domain name or not to something that doesn’t include the word “blog” but keeps “Image Earth” as I’m not sure if “blog” is required/dated these days.
Great tips which I wish I had considered before choosing my default site address.
Since starting my blog at the start of the year I have changed my blog name and address however the default site address still stays the same even though it redirects to your new URL. All media also is saved as the default site address rather than the new URL. It confused the hell out of me in the beginning but am used to it now. It just makes my URL look a little untidy and inconsistent in my opinion.
I’m a starting blogger, so this was really helpful! WordPress has such a supportive community!
i agree with you 🙂
I like your name. What are you blogging about?
For my blog of short stories, I chose taradiddlesoup.com. Taradiddle meaning a petty lie and soup as in a mix of various ingredients for consumption. Basically, it’s a collection of short fictional tales of various genres.
Catchy name. I would visit the site just because of the title.
Hahaha. Thanks. It’s been a little over a month since I last updated, but I have a story I’ve been working on for a little over a month when I have free moments here and there. I hope to have it posted in the next week or so.
Nice one, i followed your procedures to purchase http://www.ngstudents.com and mapped it to myschoolng.wordpress.com, keep it up. Am happy to be a word-presser.
I was able to export two blogs, bring them together and connect them with a .me on wordpress- it’s just great!
There are so much sites on the web. Its hard to have a desired name in any category 😦
Cool idea, thanks for your post. I got my own domain name when I first signed up for WordPress. Keep up the good work.
Very useful info! Thank you wordpress! I like that it tells you how to do these things
Great advice, my first domain name wasn’t what I wanted. But got there in the end!
I’m thinking of using the .me on the end of my url. Is that for anyone whether personal or professional blog/website?
The .me is for anyone! It works really well for personal websites and professionals building an online presence.
I agree with this post. If you can’t explain your domain name in a short breath it is a waste of time. You have to think of marketability. My name is Digi-Connex because I created a buzz word for what I do,
(digital connections) growing customer networks for businesses on-line!
I love this! Thank s for sharing! I am new to blogging, but I would also like to make it my business page as well! I don’t know where to start in tying in both names, but I will figure it out! Thanks again!
Hi Andrea, now we can register more extension of domain like .org, .co, .me, .biz, .lol, .site, and so on. But the big question for me, what is the different of all of it? Is there any relation of SEO?
Great question! SEO best practice is to secure one of the more popular domain extensions like .com and to make sure your domain name doesn’t sound like spam.
Nice tips! I’m sad i didn’t know this post before i choose my domain name. But living and learning.
Hey thank for those helpful tips and guides in connection with choosing a domain names. I learned some good domain seo stuff. Yes selecting the right domain can be a good seo website traffic generation boost.
Thanks for your post. Educative!!