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Whether you are a blogger, small business owner, or simply looking for an advantage during a current job search, buying your own domain name has its benefits. Not only can it make you stand out in the crowd, but it can also protect you from unwanted public shame and provide an efficient way to get your name out there. While there are numerous benefits to registering your own piece of the internet pie, this is just a simple list of the top five advantages to owning a personal domain name that could help you be on your way to a worldwide web of success.
1. Professionalism
Do you remember that email you made when you were thirteen? The ridiculous, unicornsandponies123@yahoo.com, that for some reason you still use today? Buying your very own firstnamelastname.com URL can protect you from the embarrassment of handing that one out to a potential client or boss. With a domain name, emails can be forwarded through the URL to your personal email. On top of seeming sophisticated a poised, John@doe.com is also formatted in a manner that makes it easier to remember and more efficient to hand out to potential clients or employers. This can come in really handy for a small business owner trying to drum up some more clientele. Think about it, which are you going to contact first? The guy with the catchy, stuck in your head John@doe.com or the one that gave you their contact information on a scratch sheet of paper that you have seemed to misplaced.
2. Control
Think of purchasing your own domain name as a well thought out power play. In the world of personal branding, the last thing you would want is for someone to Google your name, and the first thing to pop up be that video of a drunken korokke night with the girls, awkward family photos, or worse. There is always a ‘worse.’ Owning your own URL can do a lot to assist in alleviating this embarrassment. Through the magical world of search engine algorithms, owning a firstnamelastname.com URL can be the ticket that pushes last year’s disasters from page one to page thirteen. While the memories may never escape your head, this can do much to prevent them from entering others’. In addition to this, your domain name can be rerouted to any page of your liking. This means you can connect the URL to your LinkedIn or Facebook, providing the viewer with more of what you want them to see and less of what you don’t.
3. Prevention
When you don’t own your firstnamelastname.com, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone else probably does or will in the future. Whether this is because they happen to have the exact name as you or perhaps have something against you- someone somewhere out in the world can wreak havoc on your reputation just by owning a URL with your name.
With another seven billion people on the planet, it doesn’t matter how unique your name truly is- there is probably at least one person with the same one. If you get JohnSmith.com before any of the other John Smiths get ahold of it, you have some serious power in the way of branding. This goes back to control. Say an internet searcher isn’t necessarily looking for you, John Smith, but they know personally for a John Smith. When John Smith is plugged into the search engine, and the first thing pops up is JohnSmith.com, the searcher might curiously click on it. Of course, they won’t be finding what they were looking for but might find your website instead. Your website that sells colored, striped socks. While this certainly isn’t what they were looking for, who can resist striped socks? You have just successfully received extra business from someone who may not have otherwise known about your product. Or maybe the other way around, if another John Smith purchases JohnSmith.com, who knows what kind of client base you are drumming up for him? Not to mention how many of your potential employers think you are in the sock business? Another great reason to buy your own domain name is to protect your reputation against people who may hold a grudge against you. As previously stated, a domain name can be rerouted to just about any page. Maybe thirty years ago, you beat up Jimmy Jenkins, and now he owns JohnSmith.com. The possibilities are endless to what Jimmy can use this URL for. Embarrassing photos, a website dedicated to defaming you, perhaps an obnoxious blog where Jimmy pretends he is you- you name it, it’s possible.
4. It’s Inexpensive
Another benefit of purchasing your own URL is simply because it’s cheap. For the most part, your run of the mill firstnamelastname.com is only going to set you back about $10-$15 a year; with some websites; this can even be free for the first year if you sign up for a hosting package. You can even purchase your own domain name outright for a one-time fee. In the long run, this can be cheaper for business owners or long-term domain users. One benefit to cheap domains is that you can purchase as many as you wish. Why settle for firstnamelastname.com, when you could buy locationbusiness.com and oneword.com as well? Doing this can really help stretch your possibilities for how you brand yourself on the web. As mentioned previously, owning a domain name can help control what a viewer sees on the internet. Owning multiple URLs can substantially increase this benefit as what was pushed back to page thirteen is now on page twenty-five with the purchase of another domain.
5. Investment
If you aren’t using a domain name for yourself or your business, you can invest. Like just mentioned, many domain names can be bought for around $10-15 per year, or you can pay a one-time fee to own the URL outright. Some of these domain names can really appreciate. Meaning that if you hold on to it long enough, there will be someone out there who wants the URL bad enough to pay big bucks. Just last week, the domain name Firstsport.com sold for $24,480.00. That would be quite a lucrative pay off especially if you purchased it for a fraction of that.
In the end, whether it be to disguise your email, control what others see of you, or turn it around for a fair profit- what you do with the URL is up to you. Truthfully, with all the possibilities surrounding your own domain’s purchase, it should be safe to wonder why you are still reading this article. Time is ticking; pick up your domain while it’s still available! They go fast, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.