CHOOSING THE RIGHT NAME FOR YOUR BLOG
This is the all-important decision: A name. You have probably already noticed that many blogs have unusual names, often one or two words that usually aren’t used together or a humorous phrase. Some bloggers simply use their own name as their blog name. The point is to find a name that is easily remembered and one that won’t be confused with other blogs and Web sites. You may find that incorporating some form of your company’s name into the blog name is useful.
For a company, it’s probably not a great idea to brand your blog with the name of your blogger should he or she ever leave your company, the name of the blog won’t make sense anymore. Look for inspiration in internal jokes, catch phrases, or mottoes. Does the product or service you’re focusing on have a nickname you can use? If you create an informational blog, look for a name that establishes your blog as an industrywide resource. Use these tips to make your decisions as you brainstorm:
� Do choose a name that doesn’t require you to use spaces or that can be collapsed (as in domain names) and still make sense.
� Do make sure your domain name won’t inadvertently be a double enten¬dre. Lumber Jack’s Exchange becomes an entirely different site when the punctuation and spaces are dropped in a URL.
� Do look for a name that includes an identifying noun. For example, if you’re blogging about mobile phones, using the word “phone” in the name would be a good idea.
� Don’t choose a name that is hard to spell or to pronounce.
� Don’t use hyphens — they are inaudible and not so useful for advertis¬ing that relies on verbal identification.
Interestingly, most bloggers avoid using the term blog, log, or Web log in the official name of a blog, much in the way you don’t see the term “newspaper” in the names of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Whatever you choose to name your blog, you should consider registering the domain name for it, whether or not you plan to use the domain. You keep anyone else from registering the domain (by coincidence or design) and prevent confusion in the future.
You’ve probably seen some very slick, attractive blogs online — people who have taken the same kind of care with the visual tone of their blogs as they have with writing their entries. A particular design aesthetic has grown up around blogs that is shaped by the way a blog functions. Most blogs are arranged to display the most recent entry at the top of the page, with a column of supplementary information on the right or left.