Do you think for a personal(ish) blog (will also include tips, etc. about seo, link development, web design, web programming, and other tecky things, etc.) I should get the domain name "www.firstnamelastname.com" or should I think of a unique name for my blog. Also, if I am going to do the "firstnamelastname" thing is ".com", or ".name" best? Thanks for you help!
well I think if you have a nickname, why dont you just use your nickname.com??? first time I was using my nicknames in almost in all of my blogspot subdomains and then after I got domain. I make separated subdomain for every niche here is the sample travel.nickname.com money.nickname.com tech.nickname.com design.nickname.com end every subdomain have their own nich and keyword, and every subdomain is pointing your domain so I think I prefer to use my own nickname.
Get both now, before one or the other becomes unavailable. I would use the .com for the blog and .name for your bio if you have one to put out there. Chances are you will become famous for the .com and will have to use the .name for you bio.
Dot com is much better simply because people are more familiar with it. However, a disadvantage of labeling your blog with your full name is that you will find it to sell your blog later on. I suggest you invent a title of your self, depending on your niche. This is what I did to my WP blog, did you notice it?
I don't intend to sell my blog at any point in the near future, if I was, I would sell my posts rather then blog, and have the domain name forward to the new owner's address. I think I will go with my www.fullname.com and then get the .name latter on if it is still available.
If there still the .99 .com from godaddy go with if not you can get 5.99 .com from name.com hostgator has .01 hosting for the first month
The advantage of getting a domain using the subject of your blog is that you get more points from the search engines. After all, nobody is going to be searching for your name, but they will search for your subject. Once you have a reason to brand yourself, you can use your name.com which you would purchase now. Here's what I would do: get both .com domains and start building your subject blog. In the meantime, get your name.com domain and put up an index page with your keywords and Google AdSense ads. You can always post what you're doing later on with your name.com site - in other words, use it to brand yourself and what you do. You'll get even more points from the search engines if you have the domains on different hosts. You can then cross promote; if you're on the same server, you can't cross promote effectively because the search engines will reduce your points. I like using GoDaddy just because their admin panel is easier than NameCheap. Whenever you want to purchase a domain, do a search on coupons + registrar. You'll see the coupons available - new ones are published every month.
People might be searching for my name actually. I can't get google adsense because I am not over 18 years old. I have decided to use 000webhost.com for now, and maybe get proper hosting in the future. I have just set it up and you can see my new blog at http://joeldrapper.com Joel
Good choice. I prefer using my own name as well. Is that your picture? How old are you ? Your not going to be another under 18 prodigy that shows us all up are you ?
i have a personal blog which is my last name dot CA (dancy.ca) I also have firstnamelastname.com but don't use it that much anymore. it's hosted with blogallo.com which bought it for free and hosts it for free. though you have to let them put a 468x60 banner on the site and a link in the footer.
Holy Cow, Joel. Don't you have homework or something? Just kidding -- when I was your age, the internet didn't exist. I tend to lean toward using keywords rather than my name, since I'm into so much sundry stuff. If you create a blog with your name, and your interests change, will your blog change too? Rock on.
Hey, I just started a blog too! I own the site butterville.net, so I just added a blog with it. blog.butterville.net I use webhostingpad.com for my host it costs me ~$3.26 a month and it's better than hostgator's hatchling plan
Hi, Thanks for all of your help. For now, I am happy using http://joeldrapper.com as my domain name, and http://000webhost.com for hosting. Yes, that is me in the picture. I am 15. You can read more about me at http://joeldrapper.com/?page_id=2