Owning your own website URL – whether for your business or your person – can be incredibly beneficial to you. Increasingly, we’re getting contacted by people who are looking to host websites with subdomains. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. It frequently happens when another company hosts your site and you get a “custom” URL. An example of this would be something like www.kristinleezaslavsky.
Ultimately, when you host your website off of someone else’s domain they own your site. You do not have final control over the look and feel, the user experience or even whether or not your site continues to stay up. It’s worth seeking out your own, unique URL when starting your business. While there are some that say this activity is passe, it’s still worth the effort, at least for the time being.
As the Internet grows, it’s likely that the URL you’re interested in will likely be taken. In fact, some argue that the upcoming generation will not have the opportunity to own their own domains because the domains that matter will all be gone. There’s definitely some truth to this. We’ve been contacted a few times by individuals or companies asking us to give them our domain. Naturally, we haven’t given it away to anyone but there have been inquiries. It’s proof that owning one’s own domain name continues to be important to many even though there are many that argue that it is no longer important.
The fact is, if you do not own your own name it can be incredibly important to at least purchase and hold it. While you do not necessarily have to build a personal website on the domain, it prevents others from getting to the domain first. This is especially true if you are a public figure like an actor or politician. After Republican Ted Cruz recently announced his presidential candidacy, a domain in his name (www.tedcruz.com) popped up with a pro-Obama message. While this is not the end of the world, it’s certainly not the marketing message this presidential hopeful would like to circulate.
Additionally, for people with a more limited internet presence than Senator Cruz, owning your own domain can have a significant impact on your SEO. It’s worth owning your own domain – even if you do nothing with it – just to ensure that someone cannot use it to malign your good name. If you do own your domain, it can make a great landing page for those who may Google you as it will come up high in online searches. All around, it’s a good idea. If your name is available, go grab it. For $10 a year for most domain, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Purchase at least yourname.com. I bought my son’s when he was 8 years old, and am now in the process of getting URLs for my wife’s grandchildren.