Читать книгу The Freelance Mum: A flexible career guide for better work-life balance - Annie Ridout - Страница 13

Before committing to a name for your brand, check whether the domain is available for your website – e.g. theearlyhour.com/annieridout.com – and the social media handles. You can check domains by googling ‘domain checker’ and using one of the sites that pop up. Ideally, you also want your website name to be your handle. Or if your work is under your own name, try to secure social media accounts with your name (e.g. I’m @annieridout on Instagram and Twitter). There’s more on social media in Chapter 6, but for now, I’d recommend Instagram and Twitter for starting out. In terms of finding a business name that you’ll be able to own the domain for, you will need to think outside the box. If you choose ‘The Mummy Blogger’ as your brand name, the likelihood is that both the domain and social media accounts will already have been snapped up. So opt for something more original that you can use across platforms.

When you’re checking domains, you can put in the brand name you’re toying with, followed by .com and you’ll be told whether it’s available or already exists. Ideally, you want the .com, as it’s good for SEO (getting to the top of Google searches, see here) and it’s what people automatically type into Google. But if you’re totally set on a name and can only get .co.uk or .org or .co, it’s not the end of the world. As long as you build a strong brand, website and following, these things will supersede your top-level domain (TLD) – the last few letters of your URL.