With a general topic and keywords in mind, you’d think it would be a breeze to name your blog. It would be, too, except that “great minds think alike” and you’ll be hard-pressed to think of something that’s never been thought of before.

The reason it’s so tricky is that you’ll really want to have .com domain name (like yourblognamehere.com) that matches the name of your blog, and each domain name is only available to one owner, so if the one you want is already taken, you’re out of luck.

I advocate getting a .com domain name in almost all cases (the main exception being if you can spell something clever by using a different extension, like del.icio.us has done). This is because most people naturally assume .com if they don’t remember (and most won’t remember), and that’s what they’ll type in. A .com address is especially important if you ever give your blog address verbally or in advertising). For the same reason, I suggest avoiding domain names with hyphens or numbers… they’re too easily misunderstood or forgotten.

It’s important that your domain name and your blog name match because, again, people will take the path of least resistance and type in your blog name plus “.com” and expect to find you. Even for those who would go to the effort of remembering something different, it’s a much easier memory task if they only have to remember one name to come up with the other.

This all makes sense (I hope) but it also limits your choices somewhat. When I’m brainstorming for a domain name, here’s what I do:

As you know, creating a blog can be lots of fun. It’s also a lot of hard work, though, and that’s why it’s important to generate plenty of traffic to your site. After all, there’s nothing worse than pouring your heart and soul into your blog, only to discover that nobody is visiting!

So now for the $64,000 question. How does you effectively attract people to your blog? How do you actually do this and build up a blog site that will be known to many within a relatively short amount of time?