Even before you launch your website, you can (and should) begin to use your domain name. Why? Because it is the worlds cheapest advertising tool and an excellent way to brand your business.
How? By using your domain name in your email address and in your signature file.
If your email address reads yourname@aol.com or you@bell.com - you are branding the name of your Internet Service Provider. Why should you do it? Your ISP doesn't pay you for it. Indeed, you pay THEM a monthly fee!!!
Quite likely, you were not aware that you do have a choice here. Instead of advertising Earthlink, GTE, BellSouth, or AOL, you can advertise and brand your own business and your own name.
In case you didn't know, here is how it works. For example, my own service provider is home.com -- but my e-mail program is configured so, that the address I use in my "from" field says "wanda@loska.com".
I can do that because my web host provides me with a forwarding service. That means, any message sent to wanda@loska.com is forwarded automatically to my *home.com* account.
Don't think that you need to launch your web site to be able to do this -- even if you are not ready, you can use this feature.
I suggest that once you get a domain name, you set up a simple page like this: http://internetsuccesscoach.com/bizcard.html -- but even this is not necessary.
To use your domain name in email address, you only need to have a domain name and a decent web host. Yes, really. With domain name registration costs as low as $9.95 per year, and with web hosting fees around $15-30 per month -- can you afford NOT to do it? I don't think so!
To register a domain name, you might want to use a special name-find tool at continued below ...
