The Better Blogging Series, Part One: 4 Reasons to Register Your Own Domain Name

This is the first installation of the Better Blogging series based on my proposed list of 50 ways to a better blog.

1.  Registering a unique domain name will make your website memorable.

A unique domain name is easier to remember and type into a browser — for example, amandasmith.blogspot.com versus amandasmith.com — and it sets you apart so that you are not just another face in the crowd.

2.  Registering your own domain name lends your website credibility and/or professionalism.

An individual domain name tells your visitors that you mean it. You didn't just sign up for a free website account and start doodling around with no real notion of how long you would be sticking around. It says that you are definitely here, and it says that you mean it. It takes you from looking kind of slouchy to standing tall. If you own your own space, people are more likely to believe in what you put into it.

3.  Registering your own domain allows search engines to recognize your website as its own entity rather than just a subdomain.

If your website url reads you.blogspot.com or www.freesite.com/you, a search engine will focus on the main domain name, blogspot.com, and your particular blog, which is relegated as a subdomain, will only be seen as a smaller part of a larger website. By registering your own domain name, such as you.com, you allow search engines to see your website as an individual site separate from its host, and your website will rank higher in searches. This is important if you want people to be able to find you and search for your content specifically.

4.  Registering your own domain name allows you to move your website seamlessly to any host you like at any time without altering your url.

If you decide to move from Blogger to Squarespace but don't own your own domain name, your url will change, and you will lose a lot of your traction with visitors and search engines. By owning your own domain name, you can maintain your same url if you choose to move your website hosting, and all of the links both within your website and to your website from around the internet will still connect rather than point at a dead url you no longer use. It gives your website a portability that it otherwise doesn't have.

Also, if you register your domain name over five years instead of just one, you have less risk of missing your renewal date and losing your domain name altogether to another interested party.


Things to keep in mind when registering a domain name:

1. Choose a short domain name.
   People are more likely to remember your domain name and spell it correctly if it is less than ten characters long.


2. Don't use counterintuitive spelling.
   If you want people to find you, spell it cuties.com, not kyooties.com.


3. Unless you have a specific reason for using a less common domain extension, use a more common one such as .com or .net.
   When people type a url into their brower, they will most likely try to end a url with a more common top-level domain than one like .tk or .info.


4. Make sure that you maintain control of your domain name.
   Register your domain under your own account and not that of a friend or your web designer. This way, you can update your account information at will, and your ability to renew or not renew your domain name will not be tied to another individual who may or may not be around for you to contact in five years.


5. Register your domain name over the long term to lend it further legitimacy in search engines.
   Search engines often rank domain names that have been registered for several years in advance above those only registered for one year, because long-term registration shows that the domain is expected to have some longevity.

Better Blogging: The Proposed List Of 50

I am working on a series about better blogging, and I've been tossing all of my ideas into a giant master list. So far, I've got 50 ideas, and they are as follows:

1. Register your own domain name.
2. Ditch the free templates that came with your weblogging service.
3. Make your site easy to navigate.
4. Have a good portion of your content showing above the fold.
5. Have your contact information where people can see it.
6. Make sure that your archives are accessible from the home page.
7. Do not have things on the page that actively do stuff outside the reader's control.
8. Font size should be large enough to be easily readable.
9. Font colour can make or break a reader's ability to follow your text.
10. Light text on a dark background should never happen.
11. Have a search box on your website.
12. Have a comments section, and make it easy to comment.
13. Have an RSS feed available and use Feedburner.
14. Have a permanent link posted for each weblog entry.
15. Organize your weblog into categories.
16. Keep unnecessary gadgets/widgets to a minimum.
17. Keep your sidebars clean and uncluttered.
18. If you have ads, make sure that they don't overtake your design or content.
19. Regularly check that all of the links in your template work.
20. Choose a good handle.
21. Do on your weblog what you love on other weblogs.
22. Think about what makes you different and let it show.
23. Write an About article and link to it.
24. Write on a regular basis.
25. Write about things you like.
26. Keep a running list of things to blog about as you go through your days.
27. Create titles that indicate what you are writing about.
28. Edit, edit, and re-edit.
29. Spelling and grammar always count.
30. Read your entries aloud to yourself before you publish them.
31. Write short paragraphs.
32. Include pictures in your content.
33. Write posts of varying lengths.
34. Stop worrying about always being right.
35. Be aware that someone you know will read what you write at some point.
36. If you write about friends and acquaintances, don't use their real full names.
37. Enjoy what you are doing. Pretend that you are your own audience. Entertain yourself.
38. Bare yourself, but set reasonable boundaries.
39. Remember that your commenters are human beings.
40. Be generous.
41. Don't write about work.
42. Don't speak ill of other bloggers.
43. Don't use apologetic language.
44. When you write about something that not everyone might automatically know or recognize, link to further information about it.
45. Read other people's weblogs and comment on them.
46. Do not leave comments solely to spam another site with your own website link.
47. Perseverance is key. Write. And then write some more. Do this for years.
48. Use less words to say more.
49. Don't overuse your thesaurus.
50. Read Tony Pierce's "How To Blog" and Rebecca Blood's "Weblog Ethics" and Mark Bernstein's "10 Tips On Writing The Living Web" and Elizabeth McGuane and Randall Snare's Making up Stories: Perception, Language, and the Web.

Is there anything else related to better blogging that you would add to this list before I dive into the series?