The Importance of

 the Right Domain Name!

I am sharing a couple of questions from artists who have emailed me with concerns about domain names.  This is a great opportunity to share these discussions with other artists as the importance of the right domain name cannot be underestimated!   I have selected two questions  that I feel are of major interest to other artists.

Question One (edited):
I use my name for one of my domain names as well as the other with my first two initials and last name. The problem with the first name is that when clients do a search, it leads to an undesirable site. The other simply causes confusion with my clients. What would be a solution to this problem?

The Answer:
Yep, that happens and there are a couple of ways to address it.  First of all, if you have a domain name now where everything is linked to it and yet it has the problems that we just mentioned, find another domain name that is better suited to your purposes and then forward it to your established site. That way you have simply paid for a new domain name. We like www.godaddy.com as a registrar for cost effective ease in all things pertaining to websites.

When initially shopping for a domain name, try to capture your name so that it does not lead to a negative site.  And while we are on the subject, you might want to go on and collect the names of your children for safeguarding. Since your name is a common name (try Brown) you may want to capture the domain name JohnDoeArtist or JohnDoeArtGallery (or reverse the words) and have it forwarded to your current site. We have numerous domain names that all forward to the websites. The reason for that is many people still simply type in ***.com directly into the WWW without going through Google or Yahoo. For instance on our van are graphics that say "OnRoadArtists.com" which goes to a page that links to our websites. What that does is make it simple for people on the road to remember our domain name while we zipped down the Interstate. They would NOT remember (or even be able to spell)  Stephen Filarsky or M Theresa Brown...they just don't. To double insure, I also have OnRoadArtist.com (singular) and OffRoadArtist.com in case they get confused in a search later. All 3 domain names point to our main website.

I also recommend having a domain name the same as the one in which you sign your artwork. It makes finding you a simpler task later on! As we know, sometimes that is not possible. So come up with something as close to it as you can.  Think carefully about what you want to convey and how catchy it can be!
Since your current name is linked to a site you cannot control, GoDaddy also has a  service in which you pay GoDaddy to try and capture that name the instant  it becomes available. It has worked for me and I did not have to keep trying to see if the owner had renewed it. Good luck! 

Question #2 (edited)
 During a search on Godaddy, I discovered that Artist"MYNAME".com is available.  I haven't thought much beyond that, and my family and friends are telling me I don't even know if I have a marketable product yet, so I'm jumping the gun. Would it make sense to go ahead and claim that domain name for a start?

Answer:
This is a great example of "learn to take advice from people who are where you want to be." No offense to your family as they care about you. BUT having said that, they have no clue as to what you should do or not do for your art career-just their opinion.  And in the case of learning to market your art...their advice is not what you want to base your decisions on ;) You will, over the course of your business, invest money in many things....a domain name is less than $10.00 for a year....that's almost a combo meal at a fast food place right? So my advice is to ignore naysayers...you can still have one website and various domain names can forward searchers to the main site.
As far as a marketable product, why would they even discourage you?  So grab whatever you feel may work-register it for a year and put it on manual renewal and then decide at the end of a year if that particular domain name was useful to you  or if you want to let it go! 

Until later, Theresa and Steve