Website names

Hi, I'm working on my website and for now am just putting something up there that will mean I am visible and that I can point people towards.

I'm wondering whether using your name e.g. fredjones.com is a good idea or not - it ensures visibility and people can find you but is there a downside in terms of being inundated with junk etc?  Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi Mitzi,

Sure – I've done it this way and so has Nick, I think it's a great approach if you want to position yourself as “the brand”. If you make the site feel more personal It'll help generate a positive response from your visitors.

The only downsides I can think of are -

• If you have a name that's difficult to spell you'll loose word-of-mouth visitors.
  
• You'd sacrifice the opportunity to have keywords in your domain name, e.g. www.onlinemarketingdemystified.com might do better than www.nikihignett.com for the keywords “online marketing”.
  
• If you have www.firstname-surname.com and someone else already has www.firstnamesurname.com.

I've never had any greater issues with junk on nikihignett.com than I have on any other so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Let us know what you decide :o)

Niki

Niki - thanks so much. As always, really helpful.

I think I may end up having several sites as I seem to be doing lots of different things. 

I'll let you know how I get on.

Best wishes

Mitzi