Building The Blog- What Should I Name My Blog?
Unless I am mistaken almost every blogger can write a post that consists of advice for new bloggers based upon the mistakes they made when they were rookies.
Heck, we can probably do that about virtually anything and everything in our lives. It is part of the beauty of life experience. Once you have it you are granted the wisdom to look back and wonder how you managed to survive and thrive in spite of all the stupid crap you did.
When I look back on my blogging experience I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t started in ’04 and had begun now. That is because I started on a whim. I didn’t put any real thought into it. I had heard that there was this thing called a blog and figured that I would try it out.
You can blame that impulse for the lack of imagination in the title I came up with:
Random Thoughts- Do They Have Meaning?
Yep, that is is the winner. If you clicked on the link and took time to look around you’ll see that I still maintain it. I don’t do much there anymore, but I make a point to visit and try to dust it off now and again.
BLOG IDEAS (Photo credit: owenwbrown)
The blogosphere wasn’t populated back then by a million posts about how to be successful. We didn’t talk about ebooks, giveaways or sponsorships. We just wrote posts, created blogrolls, shared links and visited our blogging buddies.
It is different now.
When I decided that I wanted to move from Blogger to a self hosted blog I stressed a bit over what to call this place and whether I should come up with some sort of catchy tagline. If you want to know more about why it is important go read my friend Judy’s post.
Go on now, we’ll wait for you.
I really did think of all sorts of crazy taglines and catchy titles. This place came very close to being called The Condom Broke or s0mething similar.
Ultimately it didn’t happen because even though I often identify myself as a dad blogger I am more than just that. So I didn’t want to limit myself or the opportunities that I could see coming from blogging.
So here I am several years later and quite pleased with my decision. I think it worked out and I am seeing good things coming from all this. The community is growing, traffic is increasing and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all this.
And when I look at my stats to see the more popular posts here I see a broad selection of topics included there. I see that as evidence that proves you don’t have to specialize in one particular area.
- The Best Cover Letter….Ever
- One Slightly Used Pump For Sale
- Why Steve Jobs Isn’t Important Now
- Some Things I’ll Teach My Children (Updated)
- Mean Girls Come From Mean Moms
- Why Your Post Sucks and Everyone Hates Your Blog
- A Letter To The Universe
- Do Things Happen For A Reason?
MomRocksMeals July 14, 2012 at 12:56 pm
My friends Jenni made me start my blog. I took her opinion of my name choice along with the opinions of my husband and other close friend, then stuck with my initial inspired title: Mom Rocks Mealtime.
TheJackB July 14, 2012 at 11:33 pm
 @MomRocksMeals I like the story and the name. Meals are big in my family so I have a natural bias.
rdopping July 14, 2012 at 9:38 am
Pretty sure I left a comment. Guess not. Huh. @JudyDunn post about the tagline is good. I actually changed mine recently to align better with my site’s content but am still not convinced it is right. It’s not sticky enough but then again with all the glue that oozes out of it I am not sure why….egad.
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I love my site name and we chose it knowing that there were others out there with the same name. We still rank high on Google even thought that’s not most important to us. The name just suits what we do. Probably not the best for name ranking and all that other SEO and internet goo that gets traffic but I don’t care. Just going to stick with it and building it over time.
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Maybe we will outlast the other sites with the name. Who knows. The only downside is I had to go with a dot ca instead of a dot calm. Could be worse.
TheJackB July 14, 2012 at 11:38 pm
 @rdopping My nickel (I am arrogant enough to believe my opinion is worth more than the proverbial two cents) is that blogging lends itself to experimenting.
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There is no reason why you can’t test out a few taglines and then adjust when you are certain that you have one that works for you.
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There is a lot to be said for sustaining your effort. Blogs fail at a rate around 90% so just hanging around for a little bit provides you with a guarantee that some of your competition will disappear.
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Of course new ones crop up all the time so who knows what will happen. 😉 And if you do hang around long enough there is nothing that says that you might not be able to secure the dot.com address down the road too.
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Soulati July 11, 2012 at 7:06 am
Naming my blog was one of the scariest things I had to do. How do you name a blog when you’ve never written one? How do you know that name is going to stick? I knew instinctively I had to put my name in there somewhere and be sassy at the same time. Soulati-‘TUDE! — still fits after 2.25 years, eh?
TheJackB July 11, 2012 at 9:32 am
 @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing All good questions and ones that I can answer.
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You don’t know, you just do. That is part of the fun. I think your name is perfect.
Alan Hammond July 11, 2012 at 6:25 am
I’ve been primarily a golf writer and blogger for several years, but since my children were born, I’ve always felt like writing about the dad journey (gauntlet). I’ve started with a blogger blog while I put together a good WP site. Long story short, I wish I had been doing this from the beginning. Who knows whether Fatherlyhood was a good choice for a name, but it doesn’t matter that much to me. I love writing about being a dad and a man and connectiing with people like yourself. It’s been a great experience in the month I’ve been writing. I agree with CanadianDadBlog, information overload is the biggest problem I face, but with a little organization, I’ll get that under control.
TheJackB July 11, 2012 at 9:14 am
 @Alan HammondÂ
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The most important part of blogging is tied into good content and a love for blogging, or at least a strong “like.”
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If you don’t like it you don’t last. It is the difference between viewing this as a fun hobby or work. Fun hobbies bring our personality and that is felt in our writing which benefits both us and our readers.
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The journey is half the fun.
CanadianDadBlog July 10, 2012 at 10:06 pm
It’s funny, I probably wouldn’t be blogging right now had the name Canadian Dad not been surprisingly available 5 months ago. I’m so glad it was because I love pretty much everything about my new blogging “career”. The relationships I’ve made are incredible and there are so many great blogs to read that I constantly have information overload. It’s made me a better Dad for it and that’s the most important part of it for me!Â
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 11:57 pm
 @CanadianDadBlog The community of fathers that we have found online is simply terrific. There is no other way to put it and those who aren’t online are missing out.
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I never would have predicted how much fun it has been for me to make friends like this, but it has been great. I understand exactly what you mean by information overload. There is limited time in the day so…
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Glad you are a part of the community too/
TriGirl July 10, 2012 at 9:16 pm
I was chatting online with a friend, saying I was thinking of starting a blog called “Couch to Kona” (starting at nothing and making it to the ultimate ironman race in Kona). Â But it seemed so generic. Â I told him it was really a blog about how I’m not really athletic, but I’m trying to be, and since it would be about triathlon training, I was “tri-ing” to be athletic. Â And he said, “that’s what you should name the blog”. Â So I did 🙂
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Also, peanut butter should not be refrigerated unless it’s that natural kind. Â In that case, yes. Â Yes it should.
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 11:55 pm
 triingathlete I like the idea of Couch to Kona, but I am also planning on doing the big race when I turn 50 so it has particular interest to me.
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But there is something nice about  Tri-ing as well. It fits, just like natural peanut butter in a fridge. 😉
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JudyDunn July 10, 2012 at 7:25 pm
One thing I have to say. I hate the pop-up RECOMMENDED FOR YOU thingie. It makes me dizzy and distracts me from your content. There. I’ve said it. Â : )
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Thanks for the link to my post. As you probably know, I am a big fan of a clear blog title and tagline. I have so little time and I want to know right away, when I land on a new blog, if it’s the sort of stuff I want to know about.
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That said, I changed the name of mine, just because I want to build the brand and recognition of my author name. So I guess it all depends on what the goal/purpose of your blog is. Good stuff to think about.
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 11:53 pm
 @JudyDunn Hi Judy,
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You are always welcome to share your opinion with me. You are someone who I know thinks about what they say so I am confident that there is a reason behind your words. I may not always agree, but that is ok.
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I’ll look into shutting down the slide. I think the Nrelate might be working pretty well so it won’t hurt to shut down another plugin.
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Your comment reminds me that it is probably time to blog again about purpose and mission statements for bloggers.
JudyDunn July 11, 2012 at 6:31 am
 @TheJackB You know what I really like about you? You accept dissenting views and don’t get all hot and bothered by them. Truly the sign of a good blogger. Great discussion going on here.Â
TheJackB July 11, 2012 at 8:29 am
 @JudyDunnÂ
Did I mention that I am a political independent? I vote on issues and not based upon what the party does.
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I try to keep my ego out of this as much as possible. I accept that I don’t know everything  and that there is much that I can learn from others.
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When someone disagrees I try to look at what they said and what it is about. Sometimes it is useful criticism and sometimes it is not.
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But I would be lying if I said that I never react because I do and sometimes I do so aggressively.Â
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All I know for certain is that life has proven that most of the “serious” disagreements on line really aren’t.
bdorman264 July 11, 2012 at 5:41 am
 @JudyDunn You renegade………….
JudyDunn July 11, 2012 at 6:29 am
 @bdorman264 Yeah, I know. As someone who had my own marketing business for 20+ years, I know that pop-up boxes are there because they work. And I could probably get more subscribers if I had Bob make me one. But they drive me nuts. Jack’s at least is partially close-able (although I still see the corner of it looming at me after I close it.  : )  But the ones I really hate are the boxes that pop up randomly and move like those ducks at the carnivals—you know, the ones that are impossible to hit? By the time I have succeeding in killing it, I have no energy left to go back and read the blogger’s post. LOL.
rdopping July 14, 2012 at 9:41 am
 @JudyDunn @TheJackB  I think the pop up thingy is gone. Hey, BTW, how do I build points? Why do I have zero? Does livefyre measure personality? 😉
zjrosenberg July 10, 2012 at 12:14 pm
My old blog that I started in 1999 (defunct as of 2010) was called “Black Market Kittens”. It wasn’t the best decision of a name. Clearly, no one had any idea of what it was about, and even when you visited, you saw reviews of random things, rants, and my in-general popping-off about life. So, it had to die. I’ve thought about resurrecting a personal blog where I could talk about more than just parenthood, but I’m all out of time, unless I could find a way for it to score me rent money.
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Anyway, good post – there are things that people don’t think about often enough: Is the name of your blog an inside joke? Is it a reference to something you’ve got to explain (and then, do you explain it in the tagline)? Is it just your name, and if so, will that hold water?
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 4:11 pm
 @zjrosenberg Black Market Kittens- I like that. It is stodgy. 😉
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Seriously, there is something kind of cool about it, but I like names that make me think a little bit. Quirky is good in my book.
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One of the reasons this place is TheJackB is so that I can talk about anything.
zjrosenberg July 10, 2012 at 7:11 pm
 @TheJackB The idea for BlackMarketKittens originated when I had photoshopped a third eye on a cat – and when I was buying a URL, my friend said “are you going to be putting more of those black market kittens on there?” So I ran with it!
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Hah, the “stodgy” thing. I think I corrected/dug myself deeper in our Corrections segment of our show this week…should be up tonight/tomorrow 🙂
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 11:50 pm
 @zjrosenberg Stodgy is kind of funny. I like the third eye on the cat, they are nuts so it makes sense to me.
AdrienneSmith July 10, 2012 at 11:19 am
I had a problem with this as well Jack, you’re not alone. Â I just threw mine up there and I’ve had some people tell me it’s way to generic. Â Heck, I know they’re right but it’s been with me for three years now. Â Maybe changing that in the near future, we’ll see.
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I say do whatever burst your bubble. Â You’re the one that needs to be happy with it after all.
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Hey, hope you’re having a good week. Â I’ll see ya later.
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~Adrienne
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 4:10 pm
 @AdrienneSmithÂ
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Hi Adrienne,
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Eventually you end up with enough links and brand awareness to make the idea of changing a little less palatable. I think there is something to be said for using your name. It provides a certain amount of latitude that you might not otherwise have.
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So you can shift gears pretty easily.
Julie July 10, 2012 at 9:44 am
I wanted to start a blog so I could start doing intuitive readings online as well as off. Â I looked through a million favorite quotes and songs one morning for inspiration and came across “A Clear Sign” somewhere. Â Sounded catchy. Â I used it. Â I posted my first article, and my friend wrote in with the lyrics to “Freewill” by Rush, which if you recall or re-read them, includes ‘a clear sign” and is EXACTLY about what I am doing and my philosophy. Â Then my teacher said,”It’s a nice niche you’ve chosen within the intuitive community, writing about Signs.” I did? Â Nice how the universe leads you somewhere, you bite, and every one of your friends comes out to explain to you what really happened.
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That’s a no to the peanut butter.Â
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 4:08 pm
 @Julie | A Clear SignÂ
I like Rush and know that song. My favorite line is :
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“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
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There is more truth in that line than many realize. Can’t ever get out of making a choice- whether it is the right choice is a different story.
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Your blog’s name works for me, makes a lot of sense and even more now that I know the back story.
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JoeDeGiorgio July 10, 2012 at 9:01 am
Ha! Success! I’m in!
No refrigeration required for peanut butter. Regular butter, absolutely…
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 4:05 pm
 @JoeDeGiorgio Cold peanut butter is hard to spread.
BetsyKCross July 10, 2012 at 8:09 am
“Remember” is my blog’s title. Made sense and came easily, so I used it. My other (first) blog, “Silent Leaves” was named as I sat watching leaves fall into piles outside my kitchen window. It occurred to me that thoughts and experiences land in pile unnoticed unless written down, buried until / unless something triggers its retrieval.
Peanut butter is good no matter what. But I will freeze things that I don’t want to share to discourage it being eaten! I like anything frozen. Bananas with peanut butter in the middle, frozen solid, are so good!
TheJackB July 10, 2012 at 4:05 pm
 @BetsyKCross That is a good description of the leaves. You never know their stories unless you go digging for them. I wonder often about how many great stories are missed because they weren’t looked for.
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So now I know that the best stuff in your kitchen is in your freezer. Should I ever visit I’ll know where to look. Insert evil laugh. 😉
Silent