Blogging Tips: The Importance of Title and URL

I've been meandering through the blogrolls at BlogHer and checking the blogs of visitors who leave comments on my personal blogs. I see a trend of mismatched blog titles and blog URLs. I think this is a newbie bloggers mistake. It's easy to fix the title, but URLs can't be improved once they're chosen.

Since I don't want to name names, I'll make up a fictious example to explain what I mean. Then I'll tell you why it's important to have a good title and how to fix it if you don't.

Most often the person creating the blog mistakenly uses their username as the blog title or URL. Suppose, for example, that my username was hunnybun62 and I started a blog with recipes for baked breakfast goods. I might want the title of the blog to be "Baking for Breakfast." In Wordpress, you see something like this:
wordpress interface

What you need in the domain name is bakingforbreakfast, not hunnybun62. And what you need as the Blog Title is Baking for Breakfast, not hunnybun62.

The reason is that the URL and the title tell people where they are going and what they can expect to find there. The title is saved when someone stores your site as a favorite or bookmark. When that person looks through their bookmarks your title tells helps them find you quickly. Perhaps more importantly, the title is the chief bit of information the search engines look for when determining whether your site fits a searcher's terms. Someone searching for coffee cake recipes, for example, may not realize that a site like hunnybun62.wordpress.com tells them anything about coffee cake recipes. bakingforbreakfast.wordpress.com, on the other hand, suggests coffee cake might be a possible topic. The title, Baking for Breakfast, gives the search engine vital keywords to use when determining what your blog is about.

Luckily, if you mistitled your blog, you can change it. Changing the URL is impossible after the fact. Using Wordpress as an example again, go to the Dashboard, then Options, then in the General Options area you can rename your blog. Other blogging tools have similar tools to change the title.
wordpress interface

If you're starting a new blog, make sure your URL and title work for you. If you already have a blog with a less than perfect title, try changing it.

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt (view blog

) on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 5:46am

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I made this mistake on my first blog....

Hi Virginia,

I made this mistake with my first blog at WordPress, after that I think I did better. What do you recommend when you switch to a .com? I was hoping to have one domain name with three or four blogs within that domain....it that o.k.?

Catherine Morgan
Women 4 Hope and Be The Change You Want To See In Yourself

Submitted by Catherine Morgan on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 06:27

It depends

It depends on how you present it, would be my opinion. There are sites that feature a number of different blogs successfully. Most of them I can think of feature different writers for each blog. If you are blogging on different topics in each blog you need to be really clear about the distinctions between them, and how they relate to your main .com site.

The two blogs you have in your sig line are both about hope and inspiration. Having them both under the same domain umbrella might create problems in keeping them distinct and unique in readers' minds, even though one is aimed at women's issues. You'd have to present and market them as individual.

There is one possibility that you may not have thought of. My main .com site, vdebolt.com, is hosted by pair.com. For just a dollar a month, I buy a domain under that account (on the same server), namely webteacher.ws. Most web hosting companies have a similar offering. This is an inexpensive way to give your blog its own domain name while still having one main account and hosting company to deal with.

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 06:48

Thanks Virginia.....

Thanks so much for all the great information. I just started with a domain hosting company....but I really haven't been able to make heads or tails out of it just yet. But, now I know to check about getting additional domain names. Thanks.

Catherine Morgan
Women 4 Hope and Be The Change You Want To See In Yourself

Submitted by Catherine Morgan on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 07:06

domains

Check the host's pages where your account information is listed, or where you have a C-panel, and see if you can find anything about additional domains hosted under your account. Or read the host's description of their hosting plans and see if you can find a price for subdomains (or some similar name).

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 10:28

Thanks....I'll do that.

Catherine Morgan
Women 4 Hope and Be The Change You Want To See In Yourself

Submitted by Catherine Morgan on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 11:13

This is great advice

Virginia, I made this mistake, too, when I first started blogging. Thankfully a kind soul pointed it out to me at the beginning, and I was able to register my blog's name as a URL.

I wonder how important having your own domain is? Do you have any thoughts on this? I think many of us blog at servies such as wordpress and typepad and blogger. Has this become as good as your own domain name, do you think?

I always love reading your technical advice. I have learned SO MUCH from you!

Birdie
Birdie's BlogHer Blog
Beauty Dish

Submitted by Birdie Jaworski on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 07:57

I'm great with newbie mistakes

because I've made them all!

Free blogs vs. blogs on your own domain are really more about your goals for the blog. Certainly, free blogs can be hugely successful, for example, Post Secret.

I wanted to put webteacher.ws on a domain of my own because of the subject matter and the fact that it is a professional blog about web design and I wanted it to look individually done, not like a blogger template or a wordpress theme. I look at it as a representation of my professional skills.

However, with first50.wordpress.com, I didn't care about anything but playing around with a creative idea for a few minutes a day, so I went for a free blog and am happy with a standard wordpress theme.

One thing about using the templates and themes provided by Blogger or Wordpress, or any other outfit, is you can depend on valid and accessible pages with CSS based layouts and you don't have to stumble around with the HTML and CSS if you have other things on your mind. Although I can't imagine why anyone would want to think about things other than HTML and CSS; I almost never do. :)

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 10:40

Thanks, Virginia!

That's a great explanation, and it makes sense to keep a goal-oriented approach.

I can't remember where I saw it, but there was this funny list going around the 'net some months ago of URLs where the owners clearly hadn't looked at what their name ALSO spelled. Darn, I wish I could remember them, but there were pretty funny, most of them double entendres. So that would be another tip - make sure your URL doesn't spell something you don't want it to spell, ha ha!

Birdie
Birdie's BlogHer Blog
Beauty Dish

Submitted by Birdie Jaworski on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 19:48

When I first put together my

When I first put together my blog, I used my last name in the URL because I thought it would be unique (who can forget a Putz?!) and I also thought that I was going to title my blog "Welcome to Putzworld."

But now, I'm known as "Deaf Mom" instead. Eventually, I plan to switch to a domain to reflect this.

Karen
"Life is too short to pout all the time."
A Deaf Mom Shares Her World
Commercials for your website!

Submitted by Deaf Mom on Fri, 04/27/2007 - 18:48