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In Chris Garrett's article, "How to choose a perfect blog name", he talks about the difficulties of selecting domain names (especially since the good ones seem to be all taken) and suggests strategies on how to pick a good blog name.

One of the things Chris mentions is the different characteristics of a good domain name:

1. Readable
2. Pronounceable
3. Spellable
4. Memorable
5. Concise
6. Unique

Now while it's easy to recognise a good domain name and then identify why it's good, it's much harder to generate such a name (I'll deal with the options of buying domain names in a future article). Let's face it - some people are not great at thinking up of cool / memorable domain names, while others can do it naturally.

Personally, I'm average or slightly above-average when it comes to picking names (I can recognise winners but find it much harder to think of them). I have a friend though, a fellow blogger, who's quite good at brainstorming for domain names and there have several occassions in the last year or so when we have chatted simply picked excellent domain names out of thin air.

What I'm getting at is that you will have, in your circle of friends or acquaintances, someone who is naturally creative and clever and as a result is good at picking names, taglines, ideas for logos, etc. Just like you would think of your SEO friend or your PHP expert as being part of your brain trust, the guy who helps you brainstorm is and should be a key part of your brain trust.

We spend so much time and energy after finding domain names, that sometimes we forget that it's much easier to ask for help from the right person.

Do you have a 'brain trust' that you bounce ideas off or have success brainstorming with? If you don't, maybe it's time you started.

When you are planning a new blog, the first thing you do is define your purpose. Why are you blogging?

Once you answer that question, a rough image starts to build your mind about how your blog would be like. One of the key distinctions at this point that you'll be making is figuring out how much of your blog is going to be a traditional resource (timeless content) and how much of it is going to be a blog (updated news and a collection of (almost) daily thoughts).

To make things clearer, suppose that we are setting up a blog on ... dating advice. Notoriously tough niche to get into but considering the ultra-popularity of it, why not? After you select your topic, you move on to the content that you are going to put up on your blog.

And here's the rub - there's only a finite set of topics (basic or advanced) that you can talk about and give advice on in any niche. You may go deep into subthemes but on the whole, there's a limited amount of foundational topics that you can start off on and write about.

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When planning for a new blog, you might take a few days to think over it, ask a few knowledgeable friends, research the industry, etc etc. The 'planning' phase for a new blog can take you time, right?

Bollocks.

I'm telling you right now that a blog launched based on 5 minutes of brainstorming will do just as well, if not better, than a blog that is started after a week's worth of meticulous research.

How come? I say this because there is only one question you need to answer before you get to the LAUNCH phase, where you put your blog up and THEN start dealing with all the small issues that come up at the time. Sure, it's nice to have all the answers before you start, but it's not necessary. And if you're already very busy with other work and have a limited period of time in which to start this new blog, you need to save time and with that, everything unnecessary (such as taking out time beforehand to answer a myriad of questions whose answers you won't need till some time later) is a waste of time.

The ONLY question you need to answer at this point is:

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In the 'Ask Your Blogging Questions Here' thread, franky asks:

How do you really start a new (niche) blog? Many times the '10 articles' and 'establish yourself as an authority' is managed, but what pace to set during the first period?

There are two established strategies to successfully launch your blog - the big bang model or the bootstrapping model - and these differ in terms of resources available to the blog owner.

The Big Bang Approach

If you have any one of these two:

• a lot of money
• plenty of good contacts in the industry

This is the ideal way to go. You can write a lot of quality content in advance (around 30-50 articles), and around launch time either spend big or network big and get the word out as quickly and as widely as possible.

Lots of good content + a lot of eyeballs generally translates into a good, successful launch, but there are two factors that you have to cater for.

One, make sure you're working in a profitable niche.

Two, make sure you have a 'phase 2' - a plan for what to do and how to manage your blog after the launch. It won't be possible to maintain the same blogging rhythm as during launch, and you'll have to find a solution that scales and not just eats up your time.

Bootstrapping Approach

Best if you don't have much time or money. Simply start blogging, putting out 1-2 articles per day and posting them on your blog. Promote your blog but at this stage focus on the key activities - attracting attention of the top blogs, writing linkbait, getting links from trusted sources, etc.

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