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Why It's Essential to Own You Dot Com

From having a personal blog for fun to the necessity of a business blog for profit, there’s the need for a virtual home on the web.

I’m talking about something more than a Facebook profile of course. I’m talking about having You.com.

If you’ve never thought that you would ever register a domain name and set up your own website, I hope to convince you otherwise.

In a recent article on Excelle, I talked about the importance of managing your online reputation. In this piece, I hoped to not only encourage you to manage it, but also take ownership of it.

If you’re relying on profile pages on social networks to represent you on the web, you’ve probably faced the same problems I have. Every social network has limitations. There’s no one profile format that allows you to share and display information in the way you’d really like to.

Several years ago, I registered my full name as a dot com. KellyMcCausey.com gives me freedom to create an online profile of my own design, and it gives me a nice vanity email address: kelly@kellymccausey.com.

If you search for me online, this website will pop up in the first position. I like that. It puts me in control of what others learn about me. On this personal website, I have listed my other websites, shared my contact information, and linked to a few of my favored social networks. No one — whether an old school friend or a potential customer — ever has to work hard to reach me.

If personal branding is important to you, securing a namesake website is a must. And even if you couldn’t care less about what the world sees or knows about you, wouldn’t it be great to have a home on the web to call your own?

One business related advantage to having my own hosted site is that I can create simple redirects for resources I frequently recommend. Such as my favorite freelancer directory for women: KellyMcCausey.com/she takes you straight to Shelancers, right through my own referral link. It’s not that I’m trying to hide my affiliate link or trick anybody, it’s just easier to remember this link.

If I wanted to, I could install a Wordpress blog on the aforementioned domain. I could even install this blog in a sub-directory and only share the link with family and friends.

I know, you can start a blog anywhere — but again, I’m not a fan of free website hosting services and as usual, it always comes back to limitations. With your own hosting, you can do whatever you like and never have to worry about terms of service changing down the road or having advertising displayed to your visitors.

There is a small cost involved, but it’s an investment in yourself and your business. Domains are registered on an annual basis for under $10. There will also be the matter of hosting. I personally prefer not to use free hosting services. Unless you’re going to host a significant number of large-sized photographs or videos, you can grab reliable hosting for about $5 per month.

Since it’s so affordable, what are you waiting for? If you can grab it, go for your full name. If your name isn’t available, try including your middle name or initial. You can get creative if you have to. Of course, I personally recommend that you stick with a dot com versus a dot net or otherwise.

Have some fun with it. Express yourself. You may discover that You.com becomes an enjoyable digital scrapbook of your life and career.

More Digital Tips from Kelly:
This Digital Business Life
What It Takes To Succeed
How to Use Social Media to Ramp Up Your Business
What Does Your Online Resume Say About You?

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