Do you buy a coffee out in the wild once or twice a year? Well, it’s time to redirect that caffeine buzz to something way more productive—like grabbing your own domain before diving into the fascinating world of fractional marketing.
In this video, we’ll explore the must-know essentials of claiming your digital real estate. From pre-purchase decisions and the buying process to post-purchase setup—I’ve got you covered.
We’ll also delve into the cosmic debate of using your name versus a business name, check social handle availability, and throw out some practical how-tos for setting up a professional email address and website.
Hop on as we demystify domains and their significance in your fractional marketing journey. Don’t miss out! Hit like, subscribe, and join me on this epic journey through the marketing universe.
00:00 AI: 4 Getting Your Domain
00:49 Before you buy a domain
02:47 Example of using a DBA name
07:21 Buying a domain: where?
08:26 Try to get the .com
09:15 Use domain privacy protection
09:48 Auto-renew your domain
11:19 I have my domain. What now?
12:18 Give your domain somewhere to go for now
12:48 Set up a pro email address
14:47 Conclusion
AI: 4 Getting Your Domain
[00:00:00] Rachel Moore: The last thing you want is somebody to get the same idea as you, and they go grab the.com for your business idea.
[00:00:05] Again, they’re very minimal. Like you could spend at a Starbucks in two visits or maybe even one, what you would pay for one year of a domain, might as well grab it.
[00:00:20] Rachel Moore: In this video, we’re going to discuss why you need to get a domain, a website domain for yourself, preferably before you make the leap into fractional, but certainly at some point. So we’ll go over three main things: the before you buy anything decisions, what the buying process is, and then the what now set up. The what now, I promise, don’t need to really profusely sweat about it right now. A lot more of the work’s gonna happen in the first two buckets. So let’s get started.
[00:00:49] Before you buy a domain
[00:00:49] Rachel Moore: First of all, before you buy anything, think about this. If you’ve worked in social media at all, this is very much like choosing a handle.
[00:01:00] But it’s something that you can’t change as easily. There are some social apps where you can change a handle pretty easily, and it’ll redirect anybody to that new handle. Your domain, yes, you can redirect stuff, but you really want to land on the right thing the first time out the gate. This can cause some decision paralysis, too, or analysis paralysis because you’re like, what should I do?
[00:01:23] Fortunately, I am here to tell you domains are not that expensive. The more custom you go with it, they can get expensive. For instance, if I were to go out and try to buy rachelmoore.com right now, I’d pay through the nose. It’s a name, and it’s a very common name, and it’s probably taken frankly. So if you’re doing your name, it’s gonna cost more. Whereas if you have more of a business name, a unique business name that nobody else has the domain for, you’re far more likely to not only pay, and I’m talking like y’all, $20 a year. Sometimes it’s just [00:02:00] 10. It’s also a thing, and you’ll see as we get into buying the domains could be cheaper the more years you buy.
[00:02:04] Anyway, let’s get into the, before you buy anything decisions.
[00:02:07] First of all, do you want to use your name versus a business name? Maybe you already have a business name in mind, and you’re like, nope, that’s the one I’m gonna go with. It’s great. Maybe you’re thinking about it. It’s certainly something you can play around with on AI chats to get some ideas, or I’ve always found that it’s great to ask people, like, knowing what I want my business to be, what do you know me for? Like, when I come to mind from a business professional perspective, what jumps to mind? You can hammer home on that. You can be like, Ooh, it’s this, it’s, oh, that makes sense.
[00:02:40] Personal brands are easier to pivot, but business names can feel more legit.
[00:02:47] Example of using a DBA name
[00:02:51] Rachel Moore: But, and I’m a great example of this, they can box you in. I’m in my third excursion into having my own business. I have a DBA: “doing business as” name for my [00:03:00] business.
[00:03:00] That is, But Wait, There’s Moore M-O-O-R-E being my last name. It’s a DBA for what my initial business was called, which is Really Social Inc. Now, DBAs can help you not have to just completely reinvent the wheel. I created an S corp. I have an employer identification number or federal tax ID for my S-corp, which is called Really Social Incorporated.
[00:03:26] I didn’t wanna go through the whole bother of trying to change that up or switch anything. So I keep that, and now I just use a DBA as But Wait, There’s Moore. But I created Really Social back when my entire agency, my marketing, was laser-focused on social media marketing. That is not the case anymore.
[00:03:43] Since I worked in social, I expanded my knowledge and my expertise in marketing. I can do all the shit now, including podcasting, live streaming, et cetera. There’s a whole bunch more that I’m able to do. Social obviously still has its place there, [00:04:00] but it’s not the only thing I do. So I was a bit boxed in by the company name, Really Social, and I had a domain name I bought really.social. I still have that domain, and I still pay for it. Maybe at some point I won’t. But with doing a DBA, I bought a new domain that was, butwaittheresmoore.com. More on this in a second, ‘cause this is actually another point I’m gonna bring up, but that’s a domain that I bought, saying, that’s gonna be my new business name, ‘cause it’s not just social media. There’s more; I do more marketing than just social media. Made sense for me. But again, I have more than one domain. So there’s no wrong answer here. You need to find your answer. Okay, what is the business? Next, check the social handle availability. You don’t wanna snag a domain and then be like, great, I’m gonna go like now create a LinkedIn page and a Facebook page and a YouTube channel.
[00:04:53] Shit. Someone else has that name already, that handle, ah, and now you don’t have it. You [00:05:00] really wanna make sure that it’s the same, the handles are the same as the domain. It just saves you so much. Please do this due diligence. Anytime I’ve been with a company that’s rebranded, I’m like, are the handles available?
[00:05:12] Let’s try to make sure they match across the board. Nothing irritates me more than when, someone who’s not in marketing is like, it doesn’t really matter. I’m like, it really does. It makes it a lot easier. I love telling people I am. @rachelhasthemic everywhere. You don’t need to wonder what my handle is on one platform versus the other.
[00:05:29] It’s me everywhere. Find it. You can find me. It’s great. But again, you would love it if your social handles, wherever you plan to market or wherever you plan to grab a handle, just to even sit on it, is the same as your domain. Keep it simple and spellable. I mentioned I was gonna come to this. If you have to say it’s Rachel with an a, then “moore” with two O’s, no hyphen, you’ve already lost. You want someone to hear it and be able to type it into anywhere without having to be like, oh wait, did I [00:06:00] spell it correctly?
[00:06:03] If you have a complex name that is hard to spell, this might be where you’re like, let me grab a business domain. Let me just make a business name happen. If you’re like, yeah, but my name, I can make a brand outta this, then go that way, you can do it. I am an exception. I will say, this goes against the advice I just said.
[00:06:25] I did it already in this video, But Wait, There’s Moore with two o’s, Moore dot com is my website domain. However. It’s memorable. I get compliments all the time. People are like, oh my God, that’s genius. And they remember my domain. And I make a play on it all the time.
[00:06:42] I incorporate it. So I’m an exception there, but do keep that in mind.
[00:06:46] And if I can make an example of this, think of your favorite podcast where you hear ads, and they tell you a website to go to. They are verbally telling you in your ear to go remember this website and type it in [00:07:00] somewhere. Or you could even say, Hey, Siri. Tell me about this domain or whatever.
[00:07:04] I don’t know. On your laptop, you can say, take me to this website, but you have to have that audible recognition a lot easier when it’s an easier domain. All right? That is before you buy.
[00:07:21] Buying a domain: where?
[00:07:21] Rachel Moore: Next, let’s get into the buying process. Where should you buy your domain? GoDaddy. It’s an obvious choice. I actually use GoDaddy. This is not like you’re not getting married to it. Just know any domain service, buying service that you use probably has some other saying, Hey, do you wanna set up your website here too?
[00:07:40] Do you wanna set up your email here too? It’s gonna have the little add-ons you can use. I use GoDaddy strictly for buying domains and then managing the DNS servers and stuff when I need to from there, but I also host my website through Siteground, which I could buy domains through as well.
[00:07:58] So with that, let me throw some [00:08:00] names at you. Name Cheap, Hover, Pork Bun. I love that name. Squarespace, Siteground, or GoDaddy. You can start searching for the domain that you want, and just seeing if it’s available. If it’s not available, they’ll probably have some options saying, did you wanna get a .net or a .ai or a .io or a .biz, or whatever, which leads to the next point.
[00:08:26] Try to get the .com
[00:08:26] Rachel Moore: Try to get the.com if at all possible.
[00:08:29] Yes, there are absolutely other domains you can get. I already said I bought really.social y’all. That was back when that was kinda like, ooh, that’s neat. I went through almost a year of having to train email platforms that was a real domain ‘cause it was so brand new.
[00:08:48] Just get a.com. Do yourself a solid. If you can, if your business name is something where, hey, there is a kind of domain out there that lets you make a play for that and say it’s part of my business name, it’s [00:09:00] awesome. They’re the cheapest, easiest to do. If you really are like, okay, the .com is taken already, but I’m not deviating from this business name.
[00:09:08] Okay, fine. Then get a .net or .biz or whatever you need to. But try to get the.com if you can.
[00:09:15] Use domain privacy protection
[00:09:20] Rachel Moore: Turn on privacy protection. When you do buy the domain, you have options to say how private do you wanna be on the WHOIS database or directory. You don’t want your home address to be available to the general public.
[00:09:26] If you have a PO box, that’s fine, but the WHOIS database is accessible by anybody. Meaning if they’re like, I know Rachel owns, But Wait, There’s Moore and I can go see her personal home address on there. It’s not something you want available to the wide general public. Pay for the privacy and
[00:09:48] Auto-renew your domain
[00:09:48] Rachel Moore: enable Autorenew. I got some great advice- giving a shout-out right now to Phil Gerbyshak. Over 10 years ago, I went to a talk he gave here in Denver, Colorado. I’m someone who comes up with a lot of ideas. Do I follow through [00:10:00] them?
[00:10:00] With them all? No, I do not. But he gave this great advice. If you get a great idea, go buy the domain and set it to auto-renew after a year. If you haven’t done anything with it for a year, you’ve got another year of space to do something with it.
[00:10:16] But if you get to the end of year two and you’re still not doing anything with it, let it lapse. Let it go. Just like Elsa. If this is going to be your business, set it to Autorenew. Oh my God. I did let a domain lapse for a podcast I had called UnpauseIt.
[00:10:33] It’s now called MenopauseIt ‘cause I’m in menopause, but unpauseit.com. And I was getting alerts from GoDaddy that I had something that was going to expire, but I wasn’t reading the whole email, and I didn’t realize it was that, and it totally lapsed, and I lost. Oh my God. I had to go rebuy it, and it was more expensive, and I was so mad.
[00:10:51] Don’t do that. Set it to autorenew. These are not expensive products. Again, unless you’re getting something super custom, it’s maybe 20, maybe [00:11:00] let’s say $30 a year. That’s nothing. And you can set it to auto-renew. By the way, when you do buy a domain, the more years you sign up for, the cheaper it is out the gate.
[00:11:09] Might as well say it’s like buying in bulk from Costco. Save yourself the money and buy it in bulk for multiple years, and it set it to auto-renewal.
[00:11:19] I have my domain. What now?
[00:11:19] Rachel Moore: Finally, we’re in the third, the third bucket, which is the what now? Okay. You’ve bought your domain. You’ve got it now. Woo-hoo. Congratulations.
[00:11:28] You don’t need to set a full website up yet.
[00:11:30] Setting up a full website: if you’ve seen my other videos about setting up Substack, I’m just now starting to get into how to set up a publication on Substack. It’s a lot. Setting up a website can be very complicated. Very involved. There’s a lot you have to think of. You are getting into a CMS, a content management system like Squarespace, WordPress, or a Webflow or Astro for GitHub or something.
[00:11:59] [00:12:00] But you are having to set up the look and feel, which means graphic design, sizing images, setting up menus, setting up landing pages, making sure you’re setting up what things link to what, setting up redirects, setting up your email domains, whatever. You don’t have to set up that full website yet.
[00:12:18] Give your domain somewhere to go for now
[00:12:18] Rachel Moore: Did you know that sites like Medium or Substack or things like that, or even Calendly, like you can actually, once you’ve bought your domain, you can forward it to say, Hey, when someone types in my domain, they’ll go to my Calendly. They’ll go to my Medium blog.
[00:12:36] You can forward that for right now. So you don’t have to go set up a whole complete website. Just get people somewhere to go. When they do type in that website, simple landing page is perfectly fine.
[00:12:48] Set up a pro email address
[00:12:48] Rachel Moore: Get a professional email address. Now that you’ve got a domain, you can set a professional email address with that domain.
[00:12:55] Yeah, you could use business name@gmail.com. [00:13:00] Yes, you can use that in the interim, before you’ve maybe settled on domain. That’s fine. But I do recommend once you get that domain, there’s no reason you can’t now have an email address. And this is where, whether you wanna set that up, you can set up custom emails in Google and Gmail, and Outlook and things like that. It might involve you paying some money in order so that you could have that service. it’ll be worth it in the long run. I, again, personally prefer Google Workspace, but you can do whatever. But do set that up earlier than later.
[00:13:37] You might be surprised. There are some people who really do hold it against business professionals that they’re like, you have a Gmail. Are you really official? Are you really for real? And I’m like, really? It’s like literally easy as shit to set up a Gmail. But once you do set up, if you do use Google or Gmail to set up a custom domain, so rachel@butwaittheresmoore.com,
[00:13:59] you [00:14:00] then it can say, great, did you wanna set up some alias emails for that? So maybe you wanna have sales@butwaittheresmoore.com, which actually just delivers to me my email. But nobody outside needs to know that. They just say, oh, you have an email for sales. So you can set all that up as aliases on your email. You’re not actually having to set up additional email. Anyway, whatever you’re using for the domain purchasing should have that option for you. But you can also just go work with Microsoft/Google, say, Hey, I wanna set up a custom domain.
[00:14:28] How do I do that? It’s pretty easy. And again, point your domain somewhere.
[00:14:36] There is a forwarding setting you can do, and literally any domain buying services says, do you want this to forward somewhere right now? And then when you do have your website, and now you’re like, I don’t need that forward to happen anymore.
[00:14:47] Conclusion
[00:14:47] Rachel Moore: My last words on this is the timing. Start thinking about this now, even if you’re nowhere near ready to go fractional, and it’s just a twinkle in your eye, there’s no reason to not grab that domain. [00:15:00] The last thing you want is somebody to get the same idea as you, and they go grab the.com for your business idea.
[00:15:05] Again, they’re very minimal. Like you could spend at a Starbucks in two visits or maybe even one, what you would pay for one year of a domain, might as well grab it. It’s pretty minimal cost. All right.
[00:15:18] Let me know what your ideas are for your domain. Or actually, if you wanna DM them to me so you’re not putting ‘em out in the public, that’s fine.
[00:15:24] ‘Cause like I said, you don’t want someone to grab it. But yeah, just go figure out what your domain is, run some business names by your friends and family and colleagues, and see what kind of just sounds right to you. You don’t have to even have the concept of logo yet, but get that domain set in your brain and then go buy it.
[00:15:44] Go have fun. It’s fun to find. It’s fun to brainstorm and see what your business name is gonna turn into. So hopefully this was helpful. Thanks so much for watching, and I will be back with y’all on a next video for going fractional as a marketer.
[00:15:56] You’re still here. It’s over, [00:16:00], but you should hit like on this video before you head out and subscribe if you wanna get more videos that’ll help you realize how much Moore there is to marketing.
[00:16:08] See what I did there?
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