That Computer Guy

I wrote recently about protecting your security on the internet, unfortunately, this is only one of the many ways you can be targeted by scammers and other low-lifes. One of the downsides of having your business details listed across the internet is that you can be easily contacted by these types, and some of them aren’t always that obvious.

Take for instance a “special offer” a client of mine recently received. Completely unsolicited, a Melbourne based domain name registrar (who’ll remain nameless) mailed the client a letter offering the ‘.com’ of their Australian domain name for $249 inc GST for 2 years. With a sweetener of a free iPod Shuffle, the MD of the company asked me if it was worth buying. My reply was to send him a screenshot of the same domain name over at Namecheap.com for the Australian dollar equivalent of some $24. Not a bad markup by the domain registrar and it left me wondering just how ‘free’ that iPod really was. Unsurprisingly the MD didn’t go forward with that one.

What concerned me was that it was obviously a tactic that worked for this company, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. I shudder to think how many companies may have fallen for this.

The lesson here is to shop around – domain names are available from hundreds of sites across the web, and prices can vary wildly. Educate yourself on a median price and what extras may be included (things like URL forwarding, where you can forward one domain name to a site at another you own. This can be useful if you have a strong brand or want to catch all important traffic to variations of your domain name).

From my own experience I’ve found the above mentioned Namecheap is a good source for .com and .net based names; while Netregistry here in Australia is a good source for .com.au and .net.au names. If you have any you’d like to tell others about, or if you’ve been caught out a similar way and would like to warn others, please let us know in the comments below.

In a recent conversation with a friend who also runs his own tech support company, I discovered that we both share similar ideas when it comes to company image, branding and domain names.

Take this scenario:

You spend x amount of dollars every year advertising your business in Yellow Pages, the local classifieds, maybe even some online advertising. You might have a nice website for people to come and look at, and your car or van has one of those one-way-view stickers across the back screen.

That’s a pretty tidy investment.

And then your potential customer sees something like this:

MikesBusinessName@hotmail.com

Customer response: FAIL.

This is your brand, your image, your professionalism you are representing. And by using a free email address or one supplied by your internet provider, your business looks as professional as a Saturday sausage sizzle.

There is of course another reason to get your own domain name: when the day comes that you want or need to change your internet provider (and trust me, it does), that address and all the sometime clients that may have used it in the past?  They’re gone baby, GONE.

(Let me guess, you can afford to be throwing away potential clients right now, can’t you?)

So if that’s you in the scenario above – GET A DOMAIN NAME!

Seriously, it’s going to cost you around the same as a week’s advertising in the classifieds. And if you need help setting it up to route your email, get in touch via the contact form.