3 reasons you need www.yourname.com now

Why would you want to own www.yourname.com ?
For some people it's pretty obvious, for others less so or not at all.

Here are 3 reasons why, most of which will apply to everyone.

1) People google you (yes you) online. Having your 'name URL' makes you much more easily findable because Google and the other search engines pay a lot of attention to the text in URLs.

"Why would anyone Google me?" you say.
Some quick reasons

• You're in some kind of business -- people will Google you before contacting/meeting you.
• You're single and dating or trying to. Oh yes, and google potential dates too!
• You are looking for a job or maybe will some day (most people will).
• You are a school teacher. Yes, parents (and principals) will google you.
• You have any public presence whatsoever. Maybe a member of a some board, officer of a club, or just a plain old vocal person.
• You're self employed -- consultant, speaker, coach, etc. Plan on it!

And I could list a few dozen more too -- basically, people WILL google you.

Alfred Thompson wonders why more business people and teachers  aren't googleable, and I agree they should be.

2) You can probably get yourname.com or a similar variant today, but who knows if you can tomorrow?

Domain names like teddemopoulos.com (I've got it but am not using it yet) are cheap and easy to acquire.
I recommend and use Dotster.com -- less than $15 bucks.

3) If you don't, someone else may and something "inappropriate" may show up under www.yourname.com.

Sound farfetched? A friend with a less than common name had www.hisname.com become a hardcore gay pornographic site, and yes, occasionally clients would accidentally type in hisname.com instead of his business name by mistake.

Nothing against hardcore gay pornographic sites necessarily, but I certainly do NOT want them associated with my name! How about you?

Interested in more info like this? Download my free ebook Effective Internet Presence.

Comments

[Jim]

Ted, thanks you just convinced me I need to take the forwarding off my domain and build a site.

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

My pleasure Jim

[Jason Van Orden]

I'd say definitely grab .org and .net as well. After four years of owning jasonvanorden.com, I decided to buy the others to be sure I controlled them, a couple months before someone has grabbed .net. Now a "paid survey" company has a site up at the .net domain for my name.

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Jason,

I agree. Some people go hog wild buying theirname.everything, but doing .com .net and .org is wise

[Mathew Patterson]

It is totally worth doing, and thanks to the magic of Google even people who spell Mathew with an extra (and unnecessary!) 't' can find mathewpatterson.com