Enter The World Of Custom Domains

Most of the bloggers using Google Blogger have the .blogspot extension for their blogs. But is this good compared to a Custom Domain.?? The answer is a clear NO!! Still many people use the .blogspot extension. Many give the reason that they dont want to spend money on buying the Custom Domain or they will switch after their blog starts getting traffic. For those who dont want to spend money on a Custom Domain and yet want one which looks like a Custom Domain please keep reading.

Using a Custom Domain has many advantages over the blogspot extension:
•Short Name: You can choose a short name for your blog. It reduces the number of characters in your blog address. www.blogname.blogspot.com has 25 characters whereas www.blogname.com has just 16 characters.
•Remembering Blog Name: It is easy for the blog visitors to remember the name of your blog. Its better if the blog address is short and sweet or else people have a hard time remembering it.
•Professional: A Custom Domain makes your blog look more professional. A www.blogname.com will always look more professional than a www.blogname.blogspot.com.
•Search Engines: Search Engines give more importance to a Custom Domain rather than a subdomain.
•Take Your Brand Online: In this case, the brand can be your name or company/organisation name. Its better if you can make you thoughts or work public online using your own name. There are many bloggers who use their names as the blog address. John Chow is a very famous blogger using his name as the blog address www.johnchow.com
•Value: Imagine that you have a blog and after some time you stop blogging due to various reasons (No need to imagining, many of you must already have experienced it). Thats the end you will delete the blog and forget about it after some time. But if that blog has a custom domain, then you can sell it and make some bucks if the name is good(considering the custom domain isnt something like www.maflgcueb.com) and it has a good Page Rank.
•Satisfaction: Many people (including me) feel nice when they have their own domain online. I was very happy and excited when I bought my first domain and hosted a blog on it. At that time I was so happy as if my blog had got a Page Rank 6.

Check this video Blogging Blunders #1 Not Having Your Own Domain Name



Now that I have mentioned the advantages of Custom Domain, here are few important tips that you must remember while choosing a Custom Domain:
•Length: Make sure that the domain name which you choose be as short as it will be easy for people to remember your blog name. You can have a domain name which is anywhere between 1-67 characters. However a short name is always better than a long name. Remember to keep your domain name "Short and Sweet"
•Use Hyphens: Many times you will see that the domain name which you want has already been taken. In this case using a domain name having a hyphen between two words isnt a bad choice. If www.blogname.com isnt available then choose a blog name www.blog-name.com.
•Use Other Extensions: If you are not getting a domain name even after adding a hyphen then you can also use other extensions like .net, .org, .name, .biz, .mobi etc. Many big and very popular blogs use these extensions. Some of the famous blogs are www.problogger.net and www.labnol.org .
•Own Name: There are many people who use their names as their blog address. You can also use your name as the custom domain but they have a drawback as they dont contain any keywords about the topic on which you blog. So they take some time to appear in the serarch engines compared to the domain names having a keyword.
•Remove An Alphabet: There are many blogs which have removed an aphabet in the domain name like www.flickr.com or www.tumblr.com
•Use A Dot (.): You can use doamin names containing words seperated by a dot (.) . Names like del.icio.us or www.lin.cr look intresting and attractive.
•Repetative Words: You can also get a domain name having a word repeted twice. www.doshdosh.com and www.boingboing.net are some of the popular blogs using repetative words.

These are few things you should keep in mind while choosing a domain name. If you have any more suggestion then do tell us by posting your comments

If you dont want to spend money on a Custom Domain and yet want a similar looking domain then click on the link below.