Choosing and purchasing a ‘your name domain’ (e.g. joebloggs.com) is a piece of cake.

Furthermore, it’s something I advise all beginner bloggers to do – especially if they’re not sure what to blog about yet. Grab a yourname.com domain and start blogging; you’ll figure out what you want to blog about before long.

If you’re convinced, then take a moment read through this brief guide, in which I’ll show you how to choose your very own your name domain.

Finding a Domain Provider

The first step is to find a company that will sell you a domain name.

There are countless such companies out there, but my recommended domain (and web hosting) provider is Bluehost.

This site runs on Bluehost, as do all my other blogs. They are one of the least expensive web hosting providers around, offer a 30 day money back guarantee and pro rata refunds on subscriptions beyond 30 days, allow unlimited domains/websites, unlimited emails, unlimited storage space and unlimited bandwidth.

That’s a whole lot of peace of mind and unlimited stuff going on there.

You can follow our simple instructions here to purchase a domain name and hosting through Bluehost. Even better, take advantage of our free blog installation and setup service and let us do the lion’s share of the work for you!

Picking a Domain Name

First of all, if yourname.com (like tomewer.com for me) is available, grab it. Job done.

You may also wish to purchase yourname.net and yourname.org – it’s not at all necessary, but you might want to have all your bases covered.

But what if your name is John Smith, or something similarly common? You’re likely to find that the dot com, dot net and dot org domain names have already been taken (click here to learn more about domain extensions).

It’s then that you should think of variations. An obvious one is to include your middle name: johnadriansmith.com, for example. Or perhaps just your middle initial: johnasmith.com.

Another good idea is to use a moniker or nickname, like johnniesmith.com. You can mix these up with middle names and initials: johnnieasmith.com and johnnieadriansmith.com.

The main point I’m getting at is that a dot com domain is ideal – it’s what most people are familiar with. However, if you read my short article on domain extensions, you’ll know that you’ve got a lot more variations to pick from in the highly unlikely case that you can find no suitable dot com domains.

An easy option is try variations using dot net instead (e.g. johnsmith.net). Alternatively, check out your country’s country code: johnsmith.us, johnsmith.co.uk and so on.

If you’re having no joy there either, my final recommendation is to pick from one of the many country code top level domains and use it as a ‘generic’ domain extension, because many of them are recognized as such by Google. Examples of this would be johnsmith.co and johnsmith.tv.

Do you have any additional suggestions or questions regarding grabbing your very own your name domain? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image Credit: Laura Reen