How to name your Side Project, such that it gets free traffic from Google
“If a name is memorable, it’s marketable”
Naming something on the internet can feel like hunting for a needle in a haystack. You come up with a stellar name, only to discover someone’s already snagged it across domains and social media. Why is this important? Because your name should shine, not vanish in the digital crowd!
Search-Friendly Names
Names aren’t just names; they’re gateways to free search traffic. Think of them as breadcrumbs leading people straight to your project. For example, the project “Will Robots Take My Job?” used a name people were already searching for, making it easier to climb the search engine rankings and get traffic almost instantly.
I use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find popular search phrases related to my project and search for domain names with those keywords in it.
One of the domains I personally like is — makemeadmin.com it’s a phrase “make me an admin” commonly used among techies, making it easy to remember and share with others.
Only con of using this approach is that you can get trapped into a niche, name can be great for targeted project, but anything else you build in the product might easily get ignored by the users.
When the ai wave was on rise, Damon Chen an indie hacker bought the domain that contained both the words pdf and ai for $10k and it’s now getting a monthly traffic of 500k, worth millions of dollars
When should I choose a Brandable name?
If you want your product to stick out, think of a brandable name. These are catchy, memorable, and have that special something — even if they don’t scream what your project does. Think “Apple” for electronics or “Amazon” for, well, everything now
The magic is in how the name feels. It should roll off the tongue and be easy to spell. And yes, these names might require more marketing magic to become recognizable like “Google” or “Kleenex,” but imagine the possibilities if they do!
Now this approach is only recommended if you really want to build a brand, most of the time indie hacking projects are revenue & acquisition plays, both of which are outcomes of good website traffic.
Not recommend if you are planning to make quick buck from your project or don’t have deep pockets like Avi.
Avi raised $1.9M in funding and spent $1.8M on domain name. This became a topic of internet discussion generating ton of free publicity and traffic. I think the money was well spent
Dot com unavailable :(
Dreaming of a dot com? Join the club! But eveyone wants it. Internet has over 150 million .com domains registered. Well in today’s time it doesn’t make much difference going with other domain extensions like -
- Tech projects often go for .ai
- Podcasters use .fm
- Startups love .co
- For something a bit quirky, try .xyz
Personally i prefer to be creative with domain names — one of my domains have an extension .pro cause the product is a for professionals. My second favorite is .io
If you still want a dot come. Consider adding a twist like “Join” or “Get” before or after the name — like “MailChimp” did with the clever animal suffix and “merlin AI” did by adding get before their name
Social Media Handle
If your ideal handle is taken on social media, try reaching out to the current holders — they might just hand it over!
else you can add unique suffixes like “hq”, “club”, “official”
or add unique prefixes like “the”, “iam”, ”ThisIs”
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