Originally published in 2008. Updated in 2025 as part of the Personal Branding Blog relaunch under Brown Brothers Media.
I’ve received countless emails and questions during my speaking presentations about selecting the right domain name. I want to address all of these questions in this post and give you a few strategies you can use with domain names to brand yourself, your business, your content or all three.
I’ve spoken about the importance of protecting your personal brand in the digital age, but now it’s time to give you real strategies.
Step 1: Choose your strategy
Many people skip this step because they get excited and/or hear one of my talks and immediately want to protect their personal brand by securing this domain name. These individuals might have the right idea, but have forgotten one keyword: marketing.
Before you register anything, you need to decide what kind of brand you’re actually building — whether it’s corporate, personal, content-driven, or promotional — because each approach requires a different domain strategy.
1. Corporate branding
Your strategy for registering a corporate brand is simple, just use the company name. Before you name your company, you should already have the domain name. If it’s taken, then move on or try to purchase it from someone else immediately.
Otherwise, when your brand becomes more successful (your business is worth more), a third party might charge you 10× more for that same domain name. It’s much better to pay the ~$7 upfront.
2. Personal branding
The first thing you want to do is Google your name. Depending on the results, your strategy will be different.
Unique: You won’t run into any problems owning your Google results (you will be the master of your domain).
Common: You will have to brainstorm different name options.
3. Asset branding
A content-driven website, such as a blog or podcast, that is branded under a single domain name, and possibly sub-domain names (subdomain.domain.com).
4. Redirect branding
I think one of the most innovative approaches to domain name branding is to purchase a domain and redirect it to a single source. For instance, purchasing yournamevideoresume.com and redirecting that to a video resume on YouTube or Vimeo. This way, it’s short and logical enough to include on a résumé or another website for promotional purposes.
Step 2: Purchase the domain names
Once you’ve chosen your overall strategy, the next step is to secure your digital real estate. Think of this as locking down the online property your brand will live on — and protecting it before anyone else can.
1. Corporate branding
If you’re looking to brand your business, then register yourbusiness.com, yourbusiness.net and yourbusiness.org. The reason you need all three is because someone else could purchase one or both of the other two and build a business around it. Also, your competition might be tempted to purchase the other two to confuse or harm your customers.
2. Personal branding
Unique name: Use fullname.com.
Common name: Use firstmiddlelastname.com, nickname.com, or showname.com.
If all else fails: Register a set of keywords you want associated with your name and in the HTML <title> tags put those keywords followed by your full name, such that “Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel.”
3. Asset branding
If you are branding a blog or podcast series, then purchase either namepodcast.com or nameblog.com, where name equals the name of your show or topic. I see no problem with using just name.com for an asset branding strategy, as long as you find some way to call attention to the media people will be exposed to when viewing your site.
4. Redirect branding
You should purchase the title of your promotional item, such as yournameportfolio.com or yournametalks.com.
Step 3: Point domain names at hosts
Owning a domain is only the first step — now you need to make it live. Connecting your domain to a hosting provider ensures your site is actually accessible, secure, and properly branded.
Aside from redirect branding, you will have to purchase hosting space in order to fire up your website, which will connect with your domain. Services such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator, or SiteGround provide you with packages, where you can purchase a domain name and hosting for a single price (domains are often bundled free).
- Corporate branding: Connect yourbusiness.com with an associated web host and redirect/forward your other domain names to it (.net and .org).
- Personal branding: Take yourname.com and pair it with a host. Decide if you want your brand’s homepage to be a blog (e.g., on WordPress, Ghost) or a static webpage.
- Asset branding: This is very similar to the other two options, depending on the type of asset and goals behind it.
Why do branded domain names matter?
One of the mistakes I made early in my personal branding career is that I used wordpress.com to host my blog for free (the blog you are reading). Don’t worry because I learned from that. Branded domains are important because they are credible, rank better in Google Analytics and other search systems, and give you branded email addresses that you can use for business purposes.
Conclusion
Owning a domain that reflects your personal brand isn’t a luxury — it’s foundational. Choose your strategy, secure the domain variants before someone else does, host it responsibly, and treat your domain as the home base of your professional identity. Every piece of your online presence should funnel back to that address, reinforcing your credibility and authority.
This article is part of Personal Branding Blog’s Legacy Series — highlighting timeless insights from our archive. Learn more about our story here.
