Before you can set up that website or blog, you have to purchase a domain name (such as www.queensofbookmarketing.com). And choosing the domain name for your website or blog on which to market your book may seem an easy thing to do. What’s the big deal?

The big deal is how easy or hard you are going to make it for fans or potential fans to find you on the web.

If you’re a new author, or about to have your own website or blog for the first time, give serious consideration to what you’re using to brand yourself and your project.

First, let’s look at what domain names you can consider:

You could use your name to build an author brand starting with your first book and keep adding additional books to the website or blog.

You could use the name of the first book for your first website or blog and then get additional websites or blogs for additional books.

You could use the name of the series for the website or blog and put all books in the same series on that website or blog.

Is there one right answer for everyone? Not necessarily.

Here are five tips for choosing an effective domain name with which to market your book:

1. Is your name really hard to spell? (You have no idea how many different ways people find to spell Phyllis.) It’s probably not a good idea to use your name.

2. Or is your name a strange spelling of a common name (for example, Jayne instead of Jane)? Then maybe it isn’t a good idea for you to use your name.

3. Is your name so common that this isn’t a good idea? (Lots of people have the name Phyllis Miller. If you don’t believe me, plug in Phyllis Miller in Amazon. This is in part the reason why I use Phyllis Zimbler Miller.)

4. Is the title of the book so unmemorable that people might not remember it? For example, a book titled “Path to Glory” might be easily forgotten because it’s not a very specific image; it’s more like a generic title. On the other hand, the book title “The Truth About Albert Einstein” might be easy to remember because it is the name of a famous person with an intriguing implied question (the truth).

5. Is the name of the series a memorable one? “The Evening Saga” might not be because, again, too generic. But “The Hell Dragons of Michigan” might be because that certainly conjures up a memorable image.

BONUS TIP: And remember – getting a .com domain name is much more important than getting just the “right” domain name for your brand. If you get a .net or .biz domain name, you may be unintentionally sending traffic to the website/blog of the person who has that .com domain name.