Branding, Domain Name, URL, SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Blogger Custom Domain

After Google Blogger introduced the much improved New Blogger (previously Blogger Beta) and introduced Blogger Custom Domain (click BACK button to get back to this page), it is now possible for you to register your own domain name (own property) for your blog rather than using a sub-domain like myblog.blogspot.com which is the property of Blogger. If you intend to register your own domain for your blog, there are a few factors you should take into considerations, among which are:

BRANDING

Some, especially those meant for business blogs, may want to consider branding (having a unique name which one hope would get well known and easily remembered). For example, this blog,BloggerDough blog used the blog URL

bloggerdough.blogspot.com/

with the hope that BloggerDough will become a well known brand. It was created to be part of a business websiteBloggerDough with the URL:

www.bloggerdough.com

created to help other bloggers earn from their blogs. However, choosing a URL like that may not be good for SEO (search engine optimization) as search engines gives great importance to the words in the URL. Perhaps if eventually that blog gets ranked very high by search engine, then it may be found by those searching for "blogger" or "dough" but it would face great competition and not likely to be in the top of the list of result in the SERP (search engine result page). However, if ever the brand gets well known, surfers may type the website URL direct into the browser address bar to get to that website or they may search for "bloggerdough" and the possibility of that website appearing very high in the SERP is very good, likely even at the first of the list as not many other website, maybe even none, are optimized for the key word "bloggerdough". So that website will face no competition for searches for bloggerdough. This is the advantage of branding and a strategy you should go for only if you are prepared to make efforts to promote the brand. An unknown brand will not help you.

PUTTING KEY WORDS INTO URL

Search engines place much importance on the words in the website URL. Try goggling for "blogger for dummies" (key words blogger and dummies) and at time of publishing, web pages from Blogger for Dummies appeared at number 1 and 2 on the list of the SERP and this blog was at number 9 in the SERP because this:

dummies-guide-to-google-blogger.blogspot.com

appeared in the Google site search box at the top in the blog Header. 

Another 2 blogs of mine, Dummies Guide to Google Blogger was found at number 6 and 11 in the list, the first was because this the words "blogger" and "dummies" were in the blog URL.

SERP for "blogger for dummies results 1 to 10

Above is supposed to be a single screenshot of a SERP page for "blogger for dummies", but the screen is not tall enough to display the whole page, so it comprises 2 screenshots, the second one obtained by scrolling horizontally downward.

DOMAIN NAMES SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)

There are various factors when choosing a domain name. It is natural to go for a short domain name and is connected to something that is popularly searched for by surfers so that the chances of it being found and visited form search engines (free or organic hits) are better. An example might be camera.com. This is in the hope that surfers (potential customers) are more likely to find camera.com when searching for camera. There are many domain name registrars, but don't try to register that domain name because 99.99999999% that had already been registered by someone, and if it is not already in use, very likely the one who registered it will be trying to sell that popular domain name at a very high price. 

Now you can try other domain names and it will be good to do some research first like looking up common and popular key words and try to zero in on some key words related to what you want to put on your website or blog in the domain name. If you want to do that, type "keyword suggestion tool" into the Google search box above, tick the radio button beside WEB and search. You will see a few websites that can help suggest key words for you. But that is hard work.

HELP WITH DOMAIN NAME CREATION, REGISTRATION AND OPTIMIZATION

Don't like hard work? There is help available. Try Name Stock. They say they can help you find a suitable name (I assume that also includes domain name), register and optimize it using names already indexed by the very popular Google search engine. Read about how NameStock brand creation process.

Don't even want to do that? Let others who have already done the job and have ready-made domains and buy a premium domain name that suit your purpose. 

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