A lot of people ask if they should invest money in buying a domain with their name in it. As a matter of fact, just this morning, that same question came up yet again over at the Warrior Forum. Well, as simple as the question itself is, the answer is not so simple. Keep reading to find out why. Hopefully, this article will help you decide if getting a domain with your name in it is right for YOU.
At the top of the list of things to consider is this. How visible, personally, do YOU want to be? Does your business and marketing revolve around your name and your putting yourself out there as an expert on whatever niche you're targeting, or are you more or less in the background...doing a number of things that, quite honestly, you'd prefer people didn't know you were doing? I won't get into all the reasons here as some of them aren't quite on the up and up. Use your imagination.
Another thing to consider is this. How common is your name? If it's something like John Smith, for starters, you might have a difficult, if not impossible time, buying the domain as it's probably already taken. Even a name like Steven Wagenheim, if you can believe this, was taken and I had to settle for Steve Wagenheim as my domain name. I was shocked when I discovered this. So imagine how much trouble you're going to have finding a domain name with your name in it if it's a common name.
And if you DO find the domain name available, don't you think that there are going to be other people out there with similar names? Do you really think anybody is going to remember John Doe dot com with so many similar names out there? Sure, you can get the domain, but how much it's actually going to do for your business is questionable at best. So commonness of the name itself is a factor in deciding.
Then of course there is the privacy matter on a much more serious scale. There are a lot of crazy people out there who, because they have nothing else to do, will try to find out everything that they can about you and make your life less than pleasant. So before you put your name out there for the whole world to see, think about whether or not you want to put up with all the nonsense.
There is no question that if you're looking to brand yourself as an authority on a subject that getting your own name as a domain can be a big help. But please keep in mind that there are downsides to doing this and that some of them are less than pleasant.
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