How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: Now that you’ve understood the first step in your blogging journey, which is Niche selection, as we explained extensively in our previous article, it’s time for you to move forward and learn about Domain Names, Domain Extensions, Hosting, and Different types of hosting.
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How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog
Let’s Start by explaining what domain names are and how they work.
Let me give you the most basic explanation of what domain names and hosting are. See hosting as an Apartment and your domain name as your room number or address in that apartment.
A domain name is a web address comprised of a website name and a domain name extension. The name is up to you if it consists of letters, digits, and hyphens and is still accessible. Still, the domain extension is generally a predefined combination of a few characters.
Let’s look at it from another angle. To sum this up for you so you can easily understand it, I want you to look at the World Wide Web (Internet) as a giant and big world in which we all live.
In every country, we all have our distinctive states, cities, addresses, and home numbers. The same structure is how the World Wide Web works.
Hosting is your Home on the internet, more or less like the landlord, while domain names are everyone’s addresses. For someone in another country to be able to reach you through the mail, they must know your home address (domain name). This is where domain names come into play.
Domain names are unique identifiers everyone planning to own a blog must have.
An example of a domain name is SlikkyHelp.com. To reach our blog, you must enter our domain name in your browser’s URL, which finds our address on the World Wide Web and shows you our blog.
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: What is a Domain Name?
A Domain name is a unique identifier on the World Wide Web that distinguishes each web address from one another.
Now that you understand what domain names are, there are a few more things I want you to understand in the domain naming industry that sometimes confuse newbie bloggers: Domain Extensions.
Domain extensions are the words after your domain name. For example, SlikkyHelp is our domain name, but our extension is.com.
Your domain name alone can’t function without the domain extension attached to it; it’s a technical detail, and I’ll try to explain more about it in this article below.
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: Domain Name And IP Address
Just as a real address helps people identify a certain location, the goal of a domain is to help users find a website. Users can only reach websites without domain names via Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
However, IP addresses are hard to remember since they consist of a random sequence of digits, making them cumbersome to communicate with. An example of an IP address is 197.102.5.1. Domain names, on the other hand, may help generate visitors to your website. Without a Domain name, your hosting is meaningless.
Nobody will be able to locate you on the Internet. The domain name and Hosting go hand in hand and rely on each other. To make one function, you need the other. I will cover all the important facts concerning domain names in this guide. I will describe how domains function and their many kinds. Then, I will teach you how to register your domain name for your blog.
Differences Between a Domain Name and a URL
While a domain name and a URL (Universal Resource Locator) have certain similarities, they relate to distinct things. A URL functions as a full internet address that may link users to a particular page on a site (a blog).
Differences Between a Domain Name and a URL
A domain name is merely a portion of it. A URL consists of a protocol, a domain, and a route. The protocol reveals if a site has an SSL certificate. Remember that URLs have a path only when they route readers to a certain page on a site.
Every website contains two key elements: a domain name and a web hosting server. Your domain name links to the web server that hosts your site (blog).
Note that each domain is associated with an IP address. When a user types a domain name into a browser, the server searches a worldwide network of servers called the Domain Name System (DNS).
The DNS servers look up the IP address associated with the domain name, and the server that contains information about the IP address returns it to the web browser and then requests data about the site from the domain’s hosting server.
The web server keeps the website’s data, including its files, database, and HTML code. Once the hosting server delivers the data back, the web browser will turn it into a web page that people can access.
How Do Domains Work? How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: Different Types of Domains
We have different kinds of domain extensions; you need to know them to choose the one suitable for your blog.
The various types of domain names might offer additional information about the website. Here are some of the most prevalent types:
TLDs: Top-Level Domains
A top-level domain is a domain name extension. Various TLDs are accessible online, but.com is the most prevalent extension, with almost 52 percent of all websites having it. Using a more popular extension promotes better organic traffic since people generally use it by default. However, selecting a less common suffix, such as .online, typically costs less and may make a site more distinctive. With the rising number of new websites established every day, the popularity of a certain TLD can potentially vary in the future.
Examples of Popular Domain Extensions:
.com: For Communication
.net: For Network
.org: For Organization
.app: For Applications
.biz: For Business
.edu: For Education
.gov: For Government Organizations
The list goes on and on.
ccTLDs: Country-Code Top-Level Domains
A country-code top-level domain is an extension unique to a certain nation. It comprises two letters, depending on the international country codes.
Some systems help discover the relevant country codes, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) database. For instance, sites from Nigeria may use.ng, South Africa will use.za, and the United Kingdom will use.uk as their extensions; however, Brazilian sites use.br.
A ccTLD is ideal for a firm or blog focusing on a certain nation. In this manner, worldwide enterprises may vary their content for various locations.
For example, the BBC utilizes bbc.co.uk to attract readers in the United Kingdom and bbc.com for a worldwide audience.
Here are some more examples:
.ng: For Nigeria
.us: For the United States
.ca: For Canada
.uk: For the United Kingdom
.in: For India
.pk: For Pakistan
And so on.
We have many more domain extensions, but I keep the list short not to mislead you with lots of information.
gTLDs: Generic Top-Level Domains
A generic top-level domain is an extension that does not depend on a country code. There are no specified requirements to receive a gTLD. However, some extensions are sponsored by approved agencies or groups.
Some generic TLDs are limited to particular sorts of registrants. For example, an academic institution may use edu, while a government organization can use gov. You cannot utilise the extension if your domain does not fit within specified categories or institutions.
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog
Other Domain Name Types
We focused on the several extension types above. The following are the several possible structures of domain names:
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: Second-Level Domains
Second-level domains (SLDs) are below TLDs in the domain name system. An SLD is the part of a domain name placed on the left side of the final dot. Take www.SlikkyHelp.com, for example—slikkyhelp is the SLD, and.com is the TLD.
Some domain name registries employ an SLD to denote a certain kind of entity registration. For example, academic institutions in the United Kingdom generally register websites under ac.uk, whereas in Nigeria, it might be edu.ng.
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: Subdomains
A subdomain is a distinct division of a bigger domain that shares the same servers. There is no need to buy and register a subdomain. Technically, the www on most URLs is a subdomain that signifies a site is part of the World Wide Web.
The most typical application for a subdomain is to organize and split online content into various parts. For example, Google utilizes developers.google.com to give particular information to developers.
Another application of a subdomain is to build another website with the same name but in different languages. Take Wikipedia as an example, which has a different subdomain for each language. It utilizes en.wikipedia.org for the English version and es.wikipedia.org for the Spanish one.
Do Domain Extensions Contribute to Ranking Factors?
The Answer is simply Half Yes, Half No. I know that’s strange, but I’ll explain.
If you choose a domain name that ends with .ng, you’re automatically informing Google that the blog or business is located in Nigeria; the same goes for other countries’ domains.
Suppose you write great content and rank on Google search engine page results (SERP) with .ng domains. In that case, you’ll see more organic traffic from Nigeria than other countries, depending on the keywords you’re ranking for.
You wrote an article about Christianity, Ronaldo, and ranked Number 1 on the Google SERP. You’ll get more traffic from Nigerians searching for Cristiano Ronaldo since Cristiano Ronaldo keywords are well-searched in every country worldwide.
Suppose you wrote a keyword about an accident lawyer in Fresno, California. Nigerians have no business searching for such keywords since it doesn’t concern them, but you’ll still rank for this keyword if you’re one of the authoritative blogs in the niche.
Domains with countries tld do not affect Ranking much, but they also affect it in some ways, like I mentioned above. I once owned a blog called tmz.ng; there is another tmz.com in the United States, and my blog, which was tmz.ng around 2021, did enjoy nothing less than 1.5 million Organic visitors from Google every month before the blog was penalized for some reasons known to Google alone.
Some domain names are not meant for you, and you might not be able to get them without proper documentation and verification. As I mentioned above, examples of such domain names are gov and edu. They are reserved domains.
In this blogging journey, I’ll advise you to go to universal.com for peace of mind.
Free Domains
Website builders, such as WordPress.com, or content management systems, like Blogger, sometimes give free domain names to new users. Usually, newbies seize this chance to develop their websites before spending money on them.
A free web address frequently employs the same structure as subdomains. For example, instead of slikkyhelp.com, it would be slikkyhelp.wordpress.com or slikkyhelp.blogspot.com.
Remember that buying a free domain frequently comes with fewer features and tools.
How To Choose A Great Domain For Your Blog
Before choosing a domain for your blog, you must research very well to find out if the domain you have in mind is available for purchase.
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog
Let Your blog’s Niche Reflect in Your Domain name.
When crafting a domain name for your blog, try as much as possible to ensure your blog niche reflects your domain name. For example, on the SlikkyHelp.com domain, the word “HELP” is reflected in the domain name, which tells everyone that this blog is about helping.
Another example is Ask.com, where you can go on the website and ask any question and get answers from different users.
Choose a Memorable Domain name.
Another factor to consider is choosing a Memorable Domain.
SlikkyHelp.com and Ask.com are other examples of domains that are easy to memorize. Don’t just put some words that are difficult to pronounce together as a domain name; although you can do that if you don’t have any reasons, please stay out of it.
Find a domain with fewer character lengths.
Character length is another factor to consider when selecting a domain name for your Niche. I always make sure my domain character lengths are between 12 and 16.
I was so lucky to find a very easy, memorable, and short character name like SlikkyHelp.com (10 Characters), which is very rare. That’s why you have to do your research very well when choosing your domain name for your blog and don’t forget to ensure that your blog niche reflects your domain name.
How and Where To Register a Domain Name
Registering domain names is easy. I’ll explain how below. I’ll advise you that when researching domain names to check which domains are available to purchase, don’t use Godaddy.com.
I discovered that the more you searched for a particular domain name on Godaddy, the more the price increased. Below this article is a list of our researched and curated recommended Domain Name registrars For you to Research and Buy your domain name at a cheaper price.
Any organization selling or reselling domain names is a domain name registrar. Examples of domain name registrars include the following websites and organizations:
– Hostgator
– Ultahost
– BlueHost
– SiteGround
– CloudHost
If you need further help in selecting a domain name for your blog, don’t forget to contact me on Telegram to assist you further.
How To Choose A Great Domain Name For Your Blog: How to Register a Domain Name
Start by launching a domain name generator. Use this tool to verify whether your selected domain name is still available. Click on the image below or this link: https://bit.ly/3ybqpRa.
To pick the correct domain, consider branding and pricing. Make sure it is distinctive and catchy, and its pricing meets your budget.
If the HostGator price seems high, you may use ULTAHOST by clicking this link to get your domain name at a lower price.
Remember that popular domains are sometimes more costly and could already be taken. Some generators give you options if your chosen domain is unavailable. With Hostgator or Ultahost, consumers may pick a different TLD with the same name or an alternative. After picking and discovering your available domain name for your new blog using the above link we gave on the checkout page, there are numerous aspects to consider. First, pick the registration duration for your domain. Then, decide if you want to implement domain privacy protection.
We advocate adding an extra layer of defence against cyber threats. By doing so, you are safeguarding your personal information in the WHOIS records from unlawful exploitation. This also helps guard against identity theft. Proceed to make the payment. After paying for your new domain, you can access your account. Start the registration procedure by clicking the Setup button next to Domain Registration. You must submit particular information to finalize the procedure, including your name, postal address, and phone number.
Once registered, you can access a control panel with all the important administrative tools. To make things much easier, I suggest you go for the hosting. When purchasing your hosting, you will be asked whether you have a domain name ready to use with your host, if you would like to transfer your current domain name, or if you would like to buy a new one.
It’s time to move on to our next lesson, which is:
