Choosing the right blog name

As you can tell by the lack of blog posts last week, I had a pretty busy work and social life. 

It has been a while since I posted my Monday blog advice posts but I think its time to bring them back as I did have great feedback on them so there here to stay, today's topic is all about choosing the best blog name.

William Shakespeare once wrote "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet", this may work for a rose Bill but not for a blog!
The first thing you do when starting a blog is of course think up the title, this however can be tricky. The very first blog that I started was all over the place design wise but it also had a pretty horrible blog name wish I had rushed into and began to hate fairly quickly.
Thankfully as I learnt how to use code and played around more with blogger I was to play around with blog names and blog title images until I finally developed and created the blog you are currently reading. I noticed that once I changed my title from Trials and Tribulations of Gi (a lifestyle blog) to The Hunt Life (a lifestyle / vegan / advice blog) I noticed a large increase in new blog followers and daily page views.
The following are some tips that I picked up when re branding my blog.......

Lets be honest here, no one likes a ridiculously long title, especially when the title is the same as the domain name (which it should be to help to brand your blog more) which when typed in iphone browsers make it harder to check what you have posted. Having a blog domain hosted by blogger which adds on a .blogspot.com makes it even longer again.

I would suggest buying your own domain so you have full control over it, I purchased mine from Godaddy,  but am waiting for the 60 days to hurry up and finish already so I can change it over, I can't wait for it to be exclusively www.the-hunt-life.com, having a domain listing the same as your blog title makes it far easier for people and google to find your page.

Consider what you post about, do you specifically write about recipes, fitness, blog advice, lifestyle, family, DIY or a mix of a few different subjects. You don't want to pick a blog name like Mother Helper and then post blog advice, as the majority of your readership will be heading on over assuming you have a blog about motherly life. 

Make sure your title reflects what you wish to post about, I like to put myself in the lifestyle category because I post a little bit of everything so I created The Hunt Life title because that's my name which gives a more personal feel and because it allows me to post whatever I like as its all related to my life somehow. This also means that if I wish to over hall my blog content I am not confined to posting certain topics.

Blogging fads come and go so titling your blog after a fad of the moment is of course always a bad idea. The same principal can be held with sayings, imagine if blogs had been around in the eighties I don't imagine the blog title "Its hip to be square" would still have the same charm that it may have had then, just like YOLO might seem like a fun and exciting blog name right now because your a fun-live-in-the-moment-regret-nothing-try-everything-once kind of girl but will you always be that? 
Your title needs to have staying power, who knows how long blog will last but imagine if you would still be happy with your title 10 years from now?  

Say it out loud and discuss the name with friends. If you don't tend to discuss your blog name with people you may not know exactly how you feel about when it is read at once by someone other than yourself.

If try discuss the name with friends but find yourself editing what you say or notice people immediately asking you what its about then take a step back and think if this is how the title is discussed then surely it will be far more complicated when browsing and googling blogs by title.

Play around with the font and style you wish to use for your blog title, when I first changed my blog to The Hunt Life I failed to notice how distracting and hard to read the cursive became when there was a lower case f in the title, of course after I started playing around with design I soon picked up on the issue and completely changed the style of font to ensure it was easier to read.

Above are just a few examples of how different font titles can completely change the feel the blog, I wanted a sleek and sophisticated title with a little bit of flare so I pared a clean font with a bold cursive font which I think makes the title easier to read but emphasis Hunt. I am sure you will find that most of your favourite bloggers have sleek easy to read titles that draw your attention when you first view the page but do not distract you whilst you start reading.

Follow what your heart says and pick a name. At the end of the day the name is only one part of your blog, the most important part is content so as long as you are creating content that you believe in and that you enjoy writing and reading then your readership will improve.
I hope that has given you a few helpful tips for creating a blog name.
What is your best tip for creating a great blog title? Have you changed you blog title before and noticed a increase in readers?