Why .com is Still King
60sReveals the surprising scarcity of .com domains and why it's still the best choice, sparking curiosity and debate.
▶ Play ClipAI Summary
This tutorial explains how to choose a good domain name for a blog. It covers what a domain name is, the importance of the .com extension, and the scarcity of short names. The video then presents three strategies for picking a domain and offers practical tips on length, keywords, and formatting, before recommending registering through a hosting provider like HostGator.
Chapters
[00:14]
What is a domain name?
A domain name is the URL that represents your blog, like www.yourblog.com, and is found in the browser's address bar.
[01:04]
The .com extension is the standard
The .com extension is the most common and reputable. Even though most good .com names are taken, it's still recommended to use it.
[02:13]
Domain names are running out
Approximately 100,000 domain names are registered daily, mostly .com, making short names scarce. Register your chosen domain quickly to avoid losing it.
[03:08]
Three domain name strategies
Three ways to choose a domain: brand name (like Google), descriptive name (like gardeningtips), or your own name. Descriptive names are recommended as they best represent the blog's topic.
[04:16]
Mix in your name for availability
If a descriptive name is taken, add your own name, e.g., ragdollswithjenny.com. This makes the name more likely available and tells people your name.
[05:28]
SEO impact is reduced
Search engines still consider domain keywords but weigh them less than before. Focus on a short, memorable, on-topic name rather than perfection.
[06:09]
Formatting rules: no spaces, no capitals
Domain names cannot contain spaces. Use hyphens or underscores instead. Capitals are automatically converted to lowercase.
[08:04]
Register via hosting provider
The recommended way is to register your domain through your hosting provider (e.g., HostGator), which links it automatically. Avoid the confusing two-step process of separate domain and hosting purchases.
Choose a descriptive, memorable .com domain that includes a relevant keyword, register it quickly, and use your hosting provider for a seamless setup.
Mentioned in this Video
Tutorial Checklist
2
03:08
Choose a descriptive domain name that includes a relevant keyword, or add your own name if the ideal is taken.
3
05:57
Keep the domain short, memorable, and on-topic; avoid spaces and use hyphens or underscores if needed.
4
08:04
Register your domain through your hosting provider (e.g., HostGator) to link it automatically.
💡 Key Takeaways
📊
100,000 domains registered daily
Highlights the urgency of registering a domain quickly before it's taken.
02:13
🔧
Add your name to a descriptive domain
A practical workaround when the ideal descriptive domain is unavailable.
04:16
💡
Search engines de-emphasize domain keywords
Reduces pressure on finding the perfect keyword-rich domain.
05:28
⚖️
Keep domain short and memorable
Word of mouth is a powerful growth channel, so simplicity matters.
05:57
🔧
Register via hosting provider
Simplifies the process by avoiding separate domain and hosting purchases.
08:04Full Transcript
[00:00] Hey guys, Scott here. In this video we're going to be looking at choosing a good domain name for your blog. Before we jump into actually choosing what your blog's domain name will be, let's have
[00:14] a brief look at what a domain name is. So basically, a domain name is the link or called a URL that is going to be representing your blog.
[00:26] and it would be something like www.yourblog.com. The domain name for any website you're on can always be found in the address bar for your browser. If you have no idea what niche or topic you want to do for your blog,
[00:38] then you should watch a previous tutorial of mine that helps you decide on a topic for your blog. You cannot choose a good domain name for your blog if you don't know what you're going to be doing your blog about, so it is important to make sure you know what topic or niche
[00:51] you'll be doing on your blog. Most of you will likely already have a good idea of what you want to do and so you're ready to choose a domain name for your blog. The most common extension for a domain name is the .com extension, and most of you would have already seen this.
[01:04] A good example here would be Google or YouTube, as their domain names both use the .com extension. Google is google.com, and YouTube is youtube.com. However, there are also many other extensions that can be used for a domain name.
[01:17] You can have domain names that use a .org extension. There's also a .net extension. There's .edu. There's .biz. and you can even have country-specific extensions for domain names.
[01:29] For example, in Australia, a country-specific domain name would be .com.au and there's even .net.au and .org.au. Even though there are many other extensions that you can use, the most common extension and most well-known is the .com extension for domain names.
[01:45] Even though pretty much all the good .com domain names are taken, you should still try to get one. .com is most reputable and I do recommend that you stick to using the .com for your blog.
[01:58] I've briefly mentioned this, but unfortunately the .com domain names are running thin. What I mean by this is that most of the good short domain names using the .com extension are taken. Every single day there are approximately 100,000 domain names registered
[02:13] and the majority of those are .com domain names. Plus on top of that there are already so many million domain names registered and that number is growing very fast This makes it very hard to find a good short domain name for your blog
[02:27] However it doesn't make it impossible. You can still get a good domain name that nicely represents your blog, you'll just have to use slightly longer domain names which is fine. One of the things to take away from this though is that when you do know what niche you want
[02:39] to do your blog on, you should waste no time and figure out what domain name you want to use for your blog and register it. Even if you find a domain name available now that would be good for your blog, that doesn't mean that it's going to be available tomorrow, so don't waste any time when you know what
[02:53] you want to use. So now you have a better understanding of domain names, you can start to work it, coming up with your own domain name for your blog. Now we know that all good short domain names are most likely taken, so you're going to
[03:08] need to be a little creative in choosing your domain name and maybe make it slightly longer. There are three different ways you can choose the domain name for your blog. You can use either a brand name, a descriptive domain name, or even your own name.
[03:22] It is entirely up to you which method you want to use for getting your domain name. An example of a brand name being used for a domain name is, again, Google. They use google.com, which is their brand name.
[03:36] An example of a descriptive name is something like gardening tips, as it uses words in the domain name that describe what the actual blog is about. And lastly, you could just use your own name. Personally, I would recommend going with the descriptive name
[03:50] as they better represent what your blog is actually about and the other two methods are just other options you have. So the most popular method for choosing a domain name for blogs is using the descriptive domain name.
[04:03] For example, if you want a domain name about cats, and in particular, ragdoll cats, then you could use something like ragdollstalk.com as your domain name. Or if that's taking, you could actually start to mix in your own name.
[04:16] For example, you could use something like www.ragdollswithjenny.com as your name with Jenny. You can see there is a good keyword describing your blog in there, which is ragdolls, and by adding the with Jenny to the domain name,
[04:30] it does two things. First, that domain name is very likely to be available. And secondly it also tells people straight up what your name is So remember if you can find an available domain name using just descriptive words like ragdolltalk or something then you can always add in your own name
[04:48] Try to choose a domain name that at least has one keyword in it that relates to the topic or niche of the blog. So if your blog was going to be related to cats and ragdollcats then www.ragdolls.com
[05:00] is a great example as it has a related keyword in the domain name which is ragdolls. Of course there is always an exception here if you choose to actually use a domain name as a brand name. However it is uncommon to use brand names to actually choose a domain name for your
[05:16] blog. Now to cover a few things that will help you in choosing a good domain name for your blog. Search engines like Google do still consider the words used in your domain name when they rank your blog or website in the search engines.
[05:28] However they do not rank them anywhere near as strong as they used to. Google and other search engines understand that it is getting very hard to find a good related domain name. So they put less focus on the domain names and more focus on what is actually on your website or blog.
[05:43] So basically you don't really need to stress too much about getting the perfect domain name. You want to find a domain name that will be easy for your visitors to remember. As Word of Mouth can be a great way for your blog to get spread and increase in popularity.
[05:57] So try to keep your domain name as short as possible and don't make it like 10 words long or anything. and try to keep it on topic to what the blog is actually about. Domain names cannot contain any spaces,
[06:09] so when you go to register your domain name and get your blog hosting account, remember that you cannot use spaces in your domain name. It won't work. However, instead of using spaces, there are a few special characters you can use in place where you would like to have a space.
[06:25] These are the hyphens and underscores. Both the hyphen and underscores can be found on your keyboard right beside the number zero. If we look at this image here, this is the standard layout for a keyboard and the number
[06:38] zero here. You can see this key here is for hyphens and underscores. If you just press the key on its own, it will do a hyphen and if you hold shift and press the key it will do an underscore. So you can use underscores and hyphens where you would usually like to have a space in
[06:53] your domain names and that's allowed. but you can use spaces And one last point is that domain names are case insensitive meaning that if you try to register a domain name like mydomain where there is a capital M for my and a capital
[07:08] D for domain, it will actually get registered in all lowercase, so the capitals won't be counted and they'll actually be converted to lowercase. So you'll end up having just mydomain.com all in lowercase.
[07:20] So basically just don't worry about adding in capitals when you're registering your domain name as they'll get converted to the WorldCase anyway. Now let's take a look at actually getting your domain name. So once you've figured out what domain name you want, there's only one last thing you
[07:36] need to decide on. And that is which way you want to register your domain name, since there are actually two different ways you can get your domain name registered. First off, you can register your domain name through a domain registry site, which you
[07:49] will then need to buy website hosting for your blog from another company, and then link your domain name from the registry site where you purchased your domain name to your hosting account with the other company. For 99% of users that would have just sounded confusing and is why I recommend that you
[08:04] do not do it this way, which brings me on to the second way that you can register your domain name. The second way to register your domain name is to sign up for a website hosting account for your blog with HostGator, which I'll show you how to do in another tutorial video.
[08:18] And then when you sign up for your hosting account you simply enter the domain name you want to use for your blog and HostGator will link your domain name to your hosting account for you. So basically all you do is tell them the domain name you want and they do all the technical
[08:33] work in the background and this is all done pretty much instantly when you sign up. So this is how I recommend that you register your domain name. To learn how to register your domain name with HostGator and get your hosting account for your blog at the same time, you can simply click the link under this video here.
[08:49] The video you're watching will be here right through the video coming soon and the link will be directly under the video. It will be an image link so all you need to do is click the actual image and it will link you to that tutorial. If you're watching this video on YouTube there will be a link in the description to this
[09:04] tutorial page and there will also be a link in the description to the tutorial page about getting the domain name and hosting account. So that's all for this video. Good luck and thanks for watching.
[09:16] If this video helped you and you are watching this on YouTube then please thumbs up, subscribe and comment.