How to name your photography website?

When starting a photography website, you would need a name for your website, how would you name it? Here are some tips.

If you are a hobbyist then the common name used by people these days is [firstname][lastname]photography. But if you are a business, then you may want to think for some time about the name you want. This naming process has become more complicated than ever before because there are a million other photography websites out there.

Here is a checklist to help you find a good name:-

1. You want something unique, appealing and brandable.
2. You want to check if there is any other similar named website/brand. Since now we are dealing with a website, we need to think globally while naming our site.
3. Even if you can think of a good name, it should be available at various places. The name of a website is called ‘domain name’. You have to check if a name is available and then if it is available then you have to purchase it for a fee. Typically the fee ranges from $2 to $12 per year.
4. The fastest way to find a good domain name is to search it at instant domain search. If the domain is available, then buy it from wherever it is available for cheap. Another good domain search tool is Domainsbot.
5. You should try to get .com extension if possible. If your business operates locally then you can check for regional domain extensions like .co.uk , .in , .us etc. There are new extensions called .photography, .photo and .photos but, since it is not popular, we do not suggest anyone from using it, as common people won’t understand that http://yourname.photography is a website. You may use it if you are a hobbyist and you want a cool non-popular name.
6. You need to consider about social media too. Nowadays twitter.com/businessname or facebook.com/businessname is the normal format. You need to check if such names are also available. Namechk is the site in which you can easily check if the name is available in all social medias.
7. Try to keep the length of the domain name short. Nobody likes a long name.
8. If you are planning to blog a lot, then having the word ‘photography’ or ‘photo’ in your domain can give you some SEO benefits
9. If your target market is super local, then buying a name like [Your location][Photography] can help you to easily show up at the top of the search results for that keyword. Before doing that, go to Google keyword planner and enter your name there. It will show you how many people are searching for that keyword. There is no use in having such localised domain if nobody is searching it. That said, we have seen hundreds of photographers rank high on google search results just because they have that perfect word people search for.

We hope you were able to find the perfect name for your new photography website.