In 1989, I got my first account on a machine that was connected to the
Internet, years before there was even a graphical Web browser, or even a Web,
for that matter. Then, practically the only domain names in use belonged to
colleges and universities, government agencies, the military, a few
organizations concerned with the development of the Internet itself and a
handful of big high-tech companies. I wrote home from college to tell my parents
to "get ready, it's going to take over."

Now, fifteen years later, it has, and most companies of all sizes and shapes
have websites, hundreds of millions of people have at least one e-mail address
and people use the Internet to find out all kinds of information, from driving
directions to weather forecasts to bank account balances.

So how do you set yourself or your business apart on the Net with a unique
presence? There's one way -- establish your own domain name, like
"yourcompany.com". Registering a domain name used to be a daunting process; but
now, there are companies set up for the purpose of taking care of the red-tape
for you. Nowadays, it's as easy as deciding what name you want to claim, finding
out if it's available (and that's automated!) and then registering it for
yourself if it is. Then it's yours to keep as long as you (or the company you
choose to handle it) renew your registration every year. Think about it. You can
have the same addresses for the rest of your life and never lose contact via
e-mail!

When you combine it with proper website and e-mail hosting, the establishment
of your unique domain name gives you several advantages:

1) It increases your name recognition and allows your friends, family or
customers to remember more easily how to find you and your site. It's a lot
easier to remember www.example.com than it is to remember
www.free-hosting.com/business/~example.

2) It gives you a more serious and professional "appearance" on the Net. Even
if they allowed it and could handle the volume of traffic, hosting a busy
commercial website on an individual's free web space or on a free server like
GeoCities isn't very practical or professional.

3) It helps brand your image and adds a level of trust and integrity to your
site. You don't want to be the attorney at the city club with an e-mail address
like joelaw38@hotmail.com when everybody's passing out their business cards!

4) It helps people find you through search engines. Sites like Yahoo! and
Google have taken on immense importance, and getting your site in users' search
results is key to establishing new relationships with them. Many search engines
only index the first page of a site with a domain name, and some refuse to list
pages on free hosting sites at all!

5) Nobody else will get the name that you need. In the early days of the Web,
people would register domain names later to be coveted by large corporations;
and a few made lots of money selling their rights to those names before the
practice was made illegal. But even now, anyone with a business similar to yours
may lay claim to the perfect name and you'd have to settle for a less desirable
choice.

6) It gives you a permanent "anchor" for your Internet identity. Even if
you're not ready to establish a website, you can still register the name now and
use it later. Most domain name registration services will allow you to "park"
your domain for as long as you wish without really doing anything with it.

7) E-mail addresses hosted in association with your domain name will not
change, even if you switch ISPs or temporarily lose your access during a move,
for example.

Until fairly recently, all the great reasons to establish your own domain
name were outweighed for an individual or small-business by the difficulty of
actually doing it. That has changed, however, and finding a hosting provider who
will set you up with your own domain, e-mail and a website is easy and
inexpensive. It doesn't make any sense at all for a business, or even an
individual, to go another day without taking this step forward. The Internet is
here to stay -- it's important to make sure that your Internet identity is too.

By Trevor Zion Bauknight

Trevor Zion Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years of
experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation and maintenance of
business and personal identity online and can be reached at
trevor@cafeid.com.

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