What to Do When You"re Domain Name is Already Taken?
Ok, so you've found the perfect business opportunity online and now you want to start branding yourself so you can promote YOU Inc and your new business.
I am writing this article because this is exactly what happened to me.
Pressed with the question of how I will brand myself when my domain name is already taken.
That's when I decided on the brand name Whois.
Branding YOU Inc.
Branding myself online and having my own domain name.
com was important for my business growth.
When I attempted to register SandyMoore.
com it was already owned by another Sandy Moore, my identity was gone, Oh NO! How was I ever going to rank on Google out of about 1,150,000 results for Sandy Moore? Of course I would love to be ranked on page 1 of Google and that's exactly where I am headed.
However, considering I have only ever used free methods to advertise my brand I've had good success.
Find a Domain Name First find yourself a domain registrar, there are many online to choose from.
You can check to see if your domain name is already registered by going to GoDaddy or Crazy domains.
Just type in the domain name you want and see if it's still available.
Here you will be given some other suggestions if your first choice is already gone.
I don't recommend you go with most of these suggestions as they would most likely not be great choices for branding your business.
If you are desperate to have your particular domain name you can always look up the who is for that domain and approach the owner and ask them if they are prepared to sell.
Quite often you will find that the domain name is being parked or no longer used and this is a way for the owner to make money from selling it to whoever wants it.
I can't emphasise enough the importance of using your own name to brand yourself online.
After all, it is common knowledge that people join people and not businesses.
By using your own domain.
com name to brand yourself people will get to know you and trust you and therefore will want to know more about you.
Firstly through social networking, email marketing, your blog site and all the articles you write about your business or interests.
Domain Name Options Here are some other options for domain name branding if your name is already taken.
Ok, let's say your name is John Smith and of course johnsmith is already taken as it's a rather popular name.
You could choose a variation of your name.
For instance you could choose whoisjohnSmith, IamJohnSmith or Johnsmithonline, JohnSmithsWebsite or pop in your middle initial JohnWSmith.
So you see there are many possibilities available to you even when your domain name has already been taken by someone with the same name.