How do I pick a good blog name and URL on VeloCMS?
Practical advice on choosing an SEO-friendly blog name, setting up your velocms.org subdomain, understanding slug rules, and when to add a custom domain.
When you create a blog on VeloCMS, you pick a name (shown at the top of your blog and in browser tabs) and a subdomain slug (e.g., yourblog.velocms.org). These are independent settings — the name is display text, the slug is part of your URL. Both affect branding and SEO, and both have different rules for what's allowed.
What makes a blog name work well?
A good blog name is short (under five words ideally), memorable, and signals the topic without being too literal. 'Render Weekly' beats 'Weekly Frontend Development News and Tutorials' — the former fits on a browser tab without truncation and sounds like someone curated it. The name doesn't need to match your domain exactly, though consistency helps. If you're building a personal brand, using your name ('Jane Doe') or a clear descriptor ('Jane Doe on Design') is perfectly fine and increasingly common for AEO — AI engines are good at attributing content to named authors.
What are the subdomain slug rules?
Your velocms.org subdomain slug can only contain lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. No underscores, no spaces, no special characters. It must be between 3 and 32 characters. The slug is globally unique across VeloCMS — if 'coffee' is taken, try 'coffee-journal' or 'yourcoffeeblog'. VeloCMS checks availability in real time as you type during the setup flow. Choose something clean and recognizable — this is your public address until you connect a custom domain, and your existing readers will type it or click it from their bookmarks.
You can change your subdomain slug later, but existing links won't redirect automatically. If you've shared your velocms.org URL publicly, changing the slug breaks those links. Set it thoughtfully before sharing.
When should I add a custom domain?
Sooner is better if you're serious about the blog. A custom domain (yourdomain.com) builds brand equity that a velocms.org subdomain doesn't — it's what appears in newsletter 'from' addresses, what readers bookmark, and what search engines index as the canonical home. From an SEO perspective, it doesn't matter whether you're on a subdomain or a custom domain during the initial months, but once you start building backlinks, those links point to a domain you own rather than one you're borrowing. Custom domains are available on all VeloCMS paid plans.
Does the slug affect SEO for individual posts?
The blog's subdomain slug doesn't meaningfully affect SEO for individual posts — Google treats yourblog.velocms.org and yourdomain.com on roughly equal footing for a new blog. What matters more is the slug of each individual post. Post slugs are the URL path after your domain (e.g., /blog/how-to-start-a-podcast) and should be descriptive, keyword-relevant, and short. VeloCMS auto-generates them from your post title, but you can edit them in the post settings panel. The rule for post slugs: once published and indexed, don't change them without setting up a 301 redirect.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I change my blog name after creating it? Yes — Admin → Settings → General → Blog name. No effect on the URL.
- Can I have multiple slugs point to the same blog? No — each blog has one subdomain. Custom domain replaces it rather than adding alongside.
- What if my preferred subdomain is already taken? VeloCMS shows alternatives during setup. You can also try adding a year, a topic modifier, or your name prefix.
- Does my subdomain slug affect email deliverability? Indirectly — your newsletter 'from' address uses your domain. A custom domain gives you more control over sender reputation.
- Is there a limit to how many times I can change my subdomain? No hard limit, but each change breaks existing URLs. Treat it as a permanent decision once you've shared it publicly.