Do you own your name dot com? Here is my take on why you should own your own name as a domain.
But first: Stop reading and go buy your domain name. NOW.
{If you already own it, give yourself a high five & skip to the next post.}
What if your name isn’t available? Try with your middle initial. Or if you’re a writer, try YourNameWrites or YourNameWriter. Don’t be fancy or clever with a dot anythingelse. Get your dot com. Once you have YourName dot com, try to keep it consistent on social media. (More on that later.)
Why? For authors this makes the most sense because you will be known by your name. Say you become super famous and get speaking gigs. Unless you are The Bloggess, you will be introduced as your name. Plus? You AREN’T The Bloggess. Few of us are. One, to be exact. And she does also go by her real name. Just check her latest book.
Perhaps my favorite reason to own your own dot com is this: Owning your own name lets YOU control the narrative. You are the authority. You are YOU. As Dr. Seuss puts it in The Birthday Book, “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” You are YOU. Own YOU. Be YOU.
There may be good reason for exceptions to this, like a giant platform under a blog name. Or you are an anonymous blogger. Or you write under a pen name. (But you should then own that pen name.) Even if you still choose to blog or write under your clever blog name, at least BUY your name. For a rainy day, perhaps. Like when it’s raining money and they need to know where to send the check. You can simply say, “Send it to MyName@MyName dot com, thankyouverymuch.”
Agree? Disagree? Let’s have a civilized discussion in the comments about why you should own your name dot com.
More People Who Say So:
Why You Should Own Your Name as a Domain from Amanda Formaro
Why It’s Worth It to Purchase Your Domain Name from Life Hacker
Why You Should Grab Your Domain Name Now from Gary Matthews
(and by “now,” he wrote this in 2013, so you REALLY better hurry)
*This post contains affiliate links! Which means that, at no extra cost to you, if you purchase something linked through this site, I will get a referral commission. Thanks for the support!
I own my name–but it’s an add on to my regular account…what do I do with it? Should I park it or start a new blog or just let it sit there until I’m famous?
Though I only have a placeholder page at jtadamson.com directing people to my blog, I think it’s worth it! Would be especially useful info shifted gears on content focus.
It’s also great for my fan club. OK, my future fan club.
Info= if I, in this case
I wanted my own name. It was gone. 🙁 Offered to buy it and the owner wanted money for a house down payment! EEEK! Nope. So I bought my blog name. May need to either use my middle initial at some point or since all my social media is aahales I could do, aahales.com. What do you think? (Not that I’ll be making any changes for a quite a while anyway).
Thanks so much for the kind shout-out to my article on GaryMatthews.com.
As a humorous aside, Google just changed its parent-company name to Alphabet. However, they don’t own Alphabet.com! At least not yet. Maybe they can solve that problem by throwing money at it; Google is equipped for that approach. The rest of us — not so much. 🙂
I’ve always seen the practice of domain/username squatting as reprehensible – having found myself on the receiving end more than once (the practice degenerates to loathsome in cases like Ashley’s, when it’s little more than extortion).
I would love to own my domain name and/or reserve my username on social media sites across the web, but if I don’t have an immediate use for it, how it it distinguishable from squatting? Or isn’t it?
(I should note I’ve read and understood the arguments made here and on the various linked sites, but if it’s for personal email or a future project or hypothetical career search, should I give it up to someone with a more legitimate, pressing need who shares my name?)
I totally know what you mean. I think if you KNOW you plan to do something whether writing or being a public figure in some way or another, it’s not squatting. It’s smart planning. But I can see your issue with not wanting to squat! I would grab it and if someone else wants to buy it, they can contact you about it and you can decide what to do!
I love this! I recently began operating under my own name and I feel that decision shifted my ambition and upped my productivity game. When you officially link your name to your brand, there’s no turning back. As a result, changing to my name was the best decision I’ve made (to date) for my business and my future.