I was just checking my News Aggregator and for some reason a month old post from Strange Brand came up titled Top Ten Tips for Corporate Naming. I have no idea why it took 6 weeks for it to appear in my aggregator but I’m glad it did because today I’ve been thinking a lot about names for blogs and projects that I’m working on.
The 10 tips on naming a business are pretty good value and are worth considering for naming your next blog also.
- Determine How Important the Name Really Is
- Stand Out
- Avoid Generic Surnames
- Avoid Descriptive Names
- Avoid Acronyms
- Avoid Faux Latin
- Avoid Faux Latin (Cont’d): -nt Names
- Avoid Spaceless Names
- Avoid “Tech Power Synergy” Names
- Find Examples to Emulate
James writes excellent material on each point.
I guess with blogging there are a few other considerations in how it sounds and what it means to readers – one of the big ones being SEO. I know I tend to go on about Search Engine Optimization but your name is what people will predominately link to your site with and rule #1 of SEO is that the words that people link to you with is very important in helping SE’s like Google to determine what your site is about.
I tend to name most of my blogs with pretty functional names for this reason and because I want people who come to my blog to immediately to know what my blog is about within a few seconds of them arriving. Names like Digital Photography Blog, Camera Phone Reviews and Michael Jackson Trial Watch might not be the catchiest names for blogs going around but they do meet these two goals at least.
So how did/do/will you determine what to call your blog? Is it about SEO, creating a buzz, communicating what your blog is about, making it easy to remember, intriguing readers, building a brand, standing out or some other factor?
I would totally agree. My last few blog names have been a bit pithy but servicable “to-done, ipodarmy, sweetdex and successful-blog.com”. I think easy to remeber, recognize, type in, etc. is best.
And you can’t go wrong with just pointedly saying what it’s about.
And I’m right there with his remark about the faux latin. I work for a branding company and it’s pretty bad when your talking to a client and you can’t remember how to say their name…especially when it’s your own company that named them…
It depends on what you’re naming and how you think you’ll be reaching people.
If you’re naming a blog and you expect most of your traffic to come from search engines, then yeah, use some descriptive keywords in your title. If you’re building a community site where you’re going for loyal, repeat visitors and word-of-mouth referrals, then a shorter, catchy name is the go.
You see businesses like “AAA Auto Repairs” or “A1 Pest Control” in the phone book – they obviously named their businesses to appear at the top of alphabetical lists (a kind of SEO for paper-based search engines). Those businesses get a lot of first-time customers who know nothing about them, but they don’t build a brand around their businesses.
I guess I’m just saying it’s horses for courses, and you should name your blog or business in a style consistent with the type of blog or business you want to run.
Man, I have really struggled with this. I like the View from the Isle brand, but I’m wondering if I need to change…and maybe make my primary URL to trishussey.com. Comments?
Tris I often wondered about your name/url.
I like it for a number of reasons but also wonder if it could be a bit hard to remember and relate to what you’re doing.
It’s always hard to change things when you’re so far into a blog though…
I don’t think that it’s good seo practice but I’m going the ‘no space between words’ route – HomeOfficeVoice rather than Home Office Voice.
It’s more about branding – I’ll just have to do extra seo work so that when people search for “home office voice” they get me.
You can also visit the sites about.
Yes, with search engines they prefer spaces in phrases when there are suppose to be spaces. Plus it would be more beneficial to be ranked for “Home Office Voice” then “HomeOfficeVoice”.
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