Chris Bloczynski dot Com has a “Linkin’ It Up” Contest, where the winner gets a blog theme and some web development service. Don’t know if I need that, but perhaps I could “re-gift” it with a contest of my own. If I win.

To enter, you need to link to one of Chris’s posts and write about it. The little catch is that you can’t do it with any article to which you’ve previously linked, which means I can’t use my favorite post of his. Nor can I use my second favorite.

It also means I cannot write about “99 Headline Techniques Revealed.” I’m not sure if Stumbling figures into this or not, but I’m assuming I won’t be able to use “You Will Read This Article on Hypnotic Writing,” “I Spy on Other Marketers and Writers. Why?,” “Ten Reasons People Won’t Buy from You,” “Invoke Emotion Triggers by Using Colors,” or “A Link is a Link… Right?” either, because all of those are posts I’ve Stumbled or linked to, or meant to do one or the other if I didn’t.

Which leaves me with “Should You Use Your Name as Your Domain?” which is good because (a) I had a similar post started on this a while ago (or maybe I actually did a post on this–who can remember after a while, eh?) and (b) I don’t feel like going back any further in his archives. Not that that’s a slight or anything, as I don’t feel like trudging through my archives either to see if I ever did do a post on this topic, which would make it easier for me to avoid contradicting myself if I did. So, if I do end up contradicting myself, just bear in mind that past-me was probably not wrong, but might possibly have been mistaken.

It’s that kind of double-talk that could get me elected President.

Anyway, onward and forward and skyward and seaward, or backward, downward and groundward, if you prefer. Keep looking to the future, looking up, never giving up on your dreams, looking at the shining city on the hill, a thousand points of light, one hundred thousand diverse hair strands, a trillion glittering desert sands, and cake and pie and freedom french fries for all!

Sorry, I got stuck in nebulous campaign speech mode.

Anyway, back to using your name as your domain. Should you do it?

Reading Chris’s post, you’ll see that he knew from the start that he wanted to use his own name. So did I. Sort of.

I started this blog as DanBlogs.com. That sounds so foreign now, probably even more so to those readers that never knew this blog as anything besides dcrBlogs.com. But, as I wrote here, I later decided on dcrBlogs.com. And, as Joanne is now experiencing, losing the Technorati rank you have built up can be painful. Fortunately, for me not Joanne, my rank wasn’t that high when I made the switch, though I did have doubts as to how long it would take to get it built back up again.

The upside is that I now, once again, have a higher Technorati rank than Joanne.

But, I am getting sidetracked, aren’t I? A tofu-turkey in every pot (I have vegetarian readers, you know) and a cake in every dessert tray! Oh, yeah, nebulous campaign speech mode again. Sorry.

Thus, you see the importance of getting it right the first time. At least, if you are concerned about your Technorati rank. Google and other places know what to do with a 301 redirect and maintain your rankings, but not Technorati. Not yet anyway, unless they’ve made a change I haven’t heard about yet. Regardless, while you can always change later on, and may want or need to as your blog or your interests evolve, it is always best if you can get it right the first time around.

If you do use your own name, you do have more flexibility in changing topics later on, but the tradeoff is that you may have a more difficult time selling your blog if your interests change. For example, if you start a blog titled “John Smithson dot Com” and write about ant farms, you can one day change to writing about anteaters and still maintain the same domain name. However, then you will have a lot of ant farm content that will be more difficult to unload. You could sell it outright to another blog, but they could lose your audience and rankings in the switch, unless you were to do 301s for them.

On the other hand, if you start a bog titled “Ant Farm World dot Com” and later get bored with ant farms, you will have a much easier time of selling your ant farm blog and opening up “Anteater World dot Com.” Of course, the downside is that your friends may have a difficult time finding you, unless the new “Ant Farm World dot Com” owners are willing to link to your anteater site.

Chris’s post gives more reasons to consider when choosing a domain name for your blog. If you don’t have your own domain name yet or are considering starting a new blog, be sure to give his article a read. Another option is a compromise. You could get a generic domain name like “Ant Farm World dot Com” and then title your blog “John Smithson’s Ant Farm World dot Com.” That way, you could have the best of both worlds.

As always,
Believe. Act. Achieve!

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