In a previous post, I talked about “Personal Branding and Securing Your Space in the Online Arena”, and today (and in this podcast) I want to talk about “Emails and Getting a Custom Email Account”.   I can’t overemphasize the importance of having a custom email account.  And by “Custom Email Account”, I mean something that’s similar to “you@yourdomain.com”.

One of the biggest things that screams “unprofessional” when I encounter a business owner is someone with a Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, or Gmail, or any other “free” account.  Even if you pay for an email account and it ends in “comcast.net” or “bellsouth.net” or “att.net” or “verizon.com” or whatever, it still says to me “this person is small time”, and more importantly, this person isn’t really serious about their business, because they’re still conducting it on a free or non-customized email account. 

One of the reasons I think this is because I know how cheap a customized email account is.  You can get one for less than $10/year, and I’m going to tell you how.

In a previous post, I talked about purchasing a domain from GoDaddy, and one of the reasons I recommend this is because when you purchase a domain from GoDaddy, it comes with a free email account!  This is also one of the reasons that I tell people NOT to add extras to their shopping cart when they purchase their domains, because a lot of the stuff you either don’t need at the time or you just don’t need altogether.

The great thing about doing this is that you don’t have to incur another expense since you’ve already paid for this email address when you purchased your domain through GoDaddy.

Another great thing about having a GoDaddy email account is that if you truly LOVE your Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail account, you can send copies of the emails you receive on your GoDaddy email to that email account, and you can usually set up your free account so that you can respond to emails from it, using your custom GoDaddy email address.  So, from the perspective of the person who sent you an email and receives your response, it will always look professional, because it will all come from your custom email account.

So to summarize: If your name or your company’s name is available as a domain name: BUY IT! (along with any extensions that you can afford) and when you do buy it, buy it from GoDaddy because it comes with a free email account.

By the way, since we’re not spending any money on setting up this custom email address, nothing is being subtracted from our remaining balance of $353.34.

Check out this YouTube tutorial showing you how to set up your Custom GoDaddy Email Account after you’ve purchased your domain:

Don’t forget to check out the other YouTube videos that have already been uploaded to my Youtube Channel which can be found at YouTube.com/BootstrappingWithout

Leave comments on this blog, or send me an email at “podcasts[@]bootstrappingwithoutboots.com”.  There’s also a Twitter account where you can reach out to me in 140 characters or less, and that’s withoutboots.  Finally, you can give me a call on my Google Voice Line at 615-59-BOOTS (that’s 615-592-6687).

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist
Serial Entrepreneur: Jill of All Trades and Master of Two (Information, Technology)

Click below to listen to the podcast:

Today I want to talk about “Personal Branding and Securing Your Space in the Online Arena”.  One of the first things that I tell small business owners, or even aspiring entrepreneurs, or just people who think they might want to do SOMETHING, even if they don’t know what it is, on the internet is to: GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME! 

By that I mean, purchase your own domain name, for instance, one of the first domains that I purchased was KindraCotton.com.  At the time, I didn’t know how I’d use that domain, but I purchased it because essentially it’s a $10/year investment in someone with a very bright future.

I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t think to get their name as domain names, especially if they’re available.  It’s a smart move on anybody’s part.

So, if your name is available as a domain name: BUY IT!  If your company name is available as a domain name: BUY IT!  And if you can afford it, by the .NET, .ORG, and .BIZ extensions of it too!  Because at some point, this all becomes about protecting your brand.
I tell people constructing websites for the first time, to make the investment in additional domains, because you’d hate to have your brand take off, and you only own the .COM of that name.  It would be pretty terrible if you made the .COM name popular, then someone else (possibly one of your competitors) comes right under you and purchases your .NET and/or .ORG or .BIZ extensions and starts to offer a product or service very similar to yours OR they can just purchase your .NET address, then redirect it to their site, thus siphoning off potential customers of yours who mistakenly enter a .NET or other extension besides .COM.

If you have a domain name that includes a word that’s often misspelled: BUY THE MISSPELLINGS AS WELL.  You can redirect those domains to your correct domain, but you’d hate to once again miss customers because of visitor error (and visitors make errors ALL THE TIME).

So, I want to leave you with this last thought: If you purchase your domain, even if it’s just YOURNAME.com, remember that whatever price you purchase it for, you can more than likely get that price for multiple years.  For instance, the domain special through GoDaddy offers .COM domains for only $7.49/year.  That means, you can get a .COM domain, and register it for 5 years for under $40!  That’s a really good deal, because what I’ve noticed is that every year, the price of domains go up anywhere from about 10-20%.  If you can afford to buy multiple years: BUY MULTIPLE YEARS!

Buying a domain is easy, in fact, here’s a YouTube tutorial showing you how to do it:

Ok, so here’s the first tally.  Starting at $365 minus $7.67, bringing the remaining balance to: $357.33.

Don’t forget to check out the other YouTube videos that have already been uploaded to my Youtube Channel which can be found at YouTube.com/BootstrappingWithout

Leave comments on this blog, or send me an email at “podcasts[@]bootstrappingwithoutboots.com”.  There’s also a Twitter account where you can reach out to me in 140 characters or less, and that’s withoutboots.  Finally, you can give me a call on my Google Voice Line at 615-59-BOOTS (that’s 615-592-6687).

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist
Serial Entrepreneur: Jill of All Trades and Master of Two (Information, Technology).