Is your own Domain Name really that important? (A message from personal experience)

I know this may seem redundant to some of you and in a lot of the marketing information you are told that you need your own domain name. How do you know if you really need your own URL? If you have just a personal page with pictures of your family vacation you probably dont need your own domain. Or if you are just testing the waters to see if your product or service will fly on the Internet, you might not need a domain.

However, if you are serious about marketing your product or service on the Internet and plan to make a long-term venture of it, I would strongly suggest getting your own domain right from the start.

Before I put my first site on the Internet I went through a very strenuous "information overload" stage. One of the things that really stood out to me was the importance of a domain name. My partner and I purchased our URL and set up our site. Later, I started Pams Internet Promotions with the intent of working with local merchants on their Internet marketing strategies and, with my partners permission, just added my promotions site on to our previous site not thinking too much about it. I promoted the promotion section of my site to search engines, etc. and did all of the things I preach in my newsletters. Ok, now I have my site submitted everywhere as http://www.freinetworks.com/pip. I have it on my brochures, business cards, everything.

As time went by I changed the name to Profit Power Internet Promotions and decided that it was time for me to get my own URL and purchased profitpowerpromo.com. Now, do you see the problem this created for me? If I have advertised a link to one of my pages to the freinetworks site, the visitor will receive a 404 error. The index page does direct visitors to my new site, which helps. What about all of the promotion that I have done previous to the change? Every press release sent or submission I have placed has the wrong url and I now have to go back to all of those places and request a change, or leave it and take the chance that visitors will actually find the new site. I have to change all of my offline materials to reflect the name change, etc. Its not an impossible situation, just a nuisance-to put it nicely.

The moral of this story - if you are serious about marketing your product or service on the Internet, do it right from the very beginning. It only costs $70 for the first 2 years and $35 a year after that to have your domain registered with Internic. Think of it as your online business card.

About the Author

Pam Jones is the publisher of PIP News and PIP Quick Tips. She specializes in offering informative information and services that will keep you on the right track with your online marketing to help you explode your online profits. Visit the Internet Marketing Resource Center at i-m-r-c.com or find out about services available at profitpowerpromo.com

:To contact see details below.


pam@profitpowerpromo.com
http://www.i-m-r-c.com