Claim Your Name

A short time ago I decided that it was time to get serious about my online presence. After a little thought, I figured that a good start would be to claim my name (Trevor Wilson) as a web domain.

I started my search with trevorwilson.com. This seemed to be the most logical choice. However, to my surprise, it was already taken (I was a little naive).

So I thought to myself, no problem, I’ll just pick up my domain with one of the “lesser” domain suffixes. So I tried trevorwilson.net. To my surprise, it was gone too.

trevorwilson.org? Gone.

trevorwilson.info? Gone.

trevorwilson.biz? Gone as well.

That’s when it struck me. I had lost out on my own name. Apparently, there is another Trevor Wilson in San Francisco who was much quicker than I was (though admittedly, I arrived late on the scene). He managed to scoop up all of best domain extensions for our name.

That being said, I did still manage to pick up www.trevorwilson.ca (which is a good compromise as I’m Canadian and .ca domains are reasonably popular here).

But the fact that I did not get one of the best top level domains really hurt. This is obviously a lost opportunity on my part (and the reason for this post).

However, it doesn’t have to be that way for you. If you have a few extra bucks kicking around (which I know is a stretch in this economy), try to claim your name. Even if you don’t immediately use it, at least you can forward it to something useful (your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook page, another blog, etc). Ultimately, I’m hoping to use trevorwilson.ca for an online resume, but for the time being, it is directed back to the Gradversity Home Page.

Note: If you are looking for a great host for your domain name, check out Lunarpages.

But claiming your name doesn’t end with domain names. Your favorite social networks are a prime location to grab your name. Twitter, MySpace, and even Facebook are great places to start securing your online brand.

Securing the rights to your own name (either through domains, social networks, or other means) ensures that you have control over what is posted about you on the web. This gives you an opportunity to show employers exactly what they want to see when they do their research. It also allows you to produce content that gets you noticed by those same employers.

You name is an invaluable tool. Claim your name and use it wisely. It just might make the difference in landing the job you really want.