You want to build your own blog or website and you’ve decided to promote yourself as a brand, recommending your own or other people’s products and services. But the question in your mind is should I use myname.com as my domain? It’s a very good question. Daniel Scocco thinks the answer depends on your goals for the site and he gives 3 different scenarios to consider. Even if you choose a different name, I think you should have your own name as a domain and create a personal blog.
Creating a personal blog to promote you as a brand is a good idea for many reasons. If you offer useful advice and expertise within your area of knowledge you will soon become known and associated with your niche. You can use social media tools and websites to full effect to get visitors and get attention. There are many expert bloggers to learn from who have achieved notoriety already. Gideon Shalwick has interviewed professional blogger Darren Rowse. I always find time to listen to Darren. His ebook 31 days to build a better blog is an excellent read too.
Marco Saric suggests rather than going all out to become a professional blogger, a less ambitious route is to make it a side business first. A personal blog is a terrific way to develop your own community of people interested in you and what you have to say. And once you have built a community, they would be good customers for products and services you create or recommend, as long as they are closely related to your expertise or niche.
To help you with your search for the best name, domain tools is a great resource. It can search all current, deleted and expired domains plus a whole lot more useful tools. Oh, and it’s free. And if you just want to register your own name or explore some name ideas to check if they are available, visit godaddy. Godaddy is just about the cheapest and the biggest name domain registrar on the Internet.
Once you’ve chosen a name, found a host, installed wordpress, what next? You probably need some tips for designing an effective home page. The home page is the most important page; it’s what everyone sees first and first impressions count. Kayla Knight’s comprehensive article takes you step-by-step with lots of example home pages to illustrate what you need to do to make a good impression.
With all the tools and advice available, building your brand is not hard.
