I’m a big believer in owning my personal brand. If you’re aspiring to do anything amazing, it’s likely that occasionally there’s a conversation going on online about you or your company. If you’re not in control of the namesake assets for your brand, you can’t fully be part of that conversation. You can’t meaningfully influence the dialogue.
While I may not have all of the sites up, I own almost all of the legitimate and important URLs associated with my name and my business’s names. Why wouldn’t I? With tools like GoDaddy I’ve been able to purchase literally hundreds of URLs, often spontaneously, often defensively. If you think it’s expensive to purchase websites, wait until you see how expensive not owning your own name on the web ends up being in the not too distant future.
Set up an account with a reputable domain purchasing agent, and add to your warchest anytime a good reason (or an urge) arises. You’ll be thankful you did once you make the firm decision to be in complete control of your digital reputation. Hey, if 10 years from now, you look back, and haven’t done anything with those great domains, there’s a high likelihood you’ll be able to auction them off for more than you paid for them. You might even end up with the legitimate profit. The key is to buy them the right way. Don’t overpay when you buy. Do your research before you pull the trigger. Shop for deals. Personally, I have an account manager with my domain provider. If I find a site I like, I ponder a bit. After some research and some thought, I set a price I’m willing to pay. I call or email him and let him know what I’m willing to offer the owner – he takes it from there. It’s not difficult. It’s not confusing.
It’s not just your personal URLs you should own. You should also collect the matching representative social media assets. That process can be a little more time consuming. But I have some time saving ways to go about accomplishing this. More about properly acquiring social media assets in my next post!