Behind every popular blog and/or successful business, there’s strong name and branding. Your name is something extremely important, but also often neglected by lots and lots of websites owners.
In this article, I am going to you you easy things to do to protect your name and branding, and avoid future problem that may arrive quicker than you think.
1. Don’t talk too much until it’s ready
This tip is especially valuable for domain names, blog ideas, concepts, etc. Imagine : On a forum, you open a thread saying “Hey, I think that a blog about XXX will be a very good and profitable idea. What do you think about it?” and you could be sure that if your idea is valuable, someone will notice the thread and will steal your idea.Sad, but true. I heard hundreds of similar cases, so always remember that silence is golden, especially on the Internet.
2. Get the .com domain
Do you use a geo domain like .fr, .it or .us? Or do you prefer using a .net domain? No problem, but never forget to register the .com domain too.
Why? Simply because .com is the most common tld, and many people will not remember the tld you use. They’ll simply type yoursite.com in their browser’s adress bar. Also, iPhones have a “.com” button, but not “.net” or “.us” button.
If you prefer using another tld as such as .net, simply forward the .com domain to your main domain. That way, people who typed .com will be automatically redirected to your website.
3. Get the Twitter username
Imagine : Some jealous competitor have the opportunity to speak using your brand/company name and spread wrong informations just to bother you. No, you can’t even think about that.
But, this is what may happen if you don’t register your name/brand on Twitter.
Twitter is gaining more and more popularity and lots of companies, bloggers, and even politicians are using it and spead company informations, links, messages on a daily basis. If you don’t register your own twitter.com/yourbrandname url, a competitor can easily get it and use it in a way to hurt your business.
4. Get Gmail email adress
Although it is not mandatory, it can be a good idea to register the gmail adress that match your (company) name, especially if you are a small entrepreneur.
Many spammers loves to use an email adress that look real. Will you let a spammer bother people using your name?
5. Think about typos in domain name
Depending on your domain name, it can be useful to register your name with a typo in it as a domain name. For example, in France, many people call Google Gogole. So what did Google do in order to protect their name and get visits from people who spell their name the wrong way?
They registered the gogole.com domain name.
Twitter weren’t as smart as Google. Try to type http://twiter.com/ in your adress bar and see what happens : You are redirected to a crappy landing page full of affiliate links.
This is why, especially if your name is hard to spell (Think about foreign people also), contains double letters or is plural, you should always register the “typo” domain name.
6. Copyright your graphics and content
Copyrights laws are very different depending in which country you live in, so I’ll make this tip short. As you probably already experienced, many people steals your blog content, or even sometimes, your graphics.
Althought it will not totally solve the problem, registering copyrights can be a good idea to prevent or limit content/graphic thieft.
Lots of sites allow you to register copyrights online. http://www.copyrightdeposit.com/ is one of them.
7. Think about people who don’t like you
I really hate Microsoft for creating Internet Explorer. Some time ago, let’s say one year, I remember about an anti-IE6 campaign named “Save the developers”. As you can guess, the url of this campaign site was www.savethedevelopers.com. Just a few days prior to write this blog post, I remebered this campaign and wanted to see what’s up, so I typed the site url in my browser.
And guess what? I was redirected to a Microsoft site where they offered me to download Internet Explorer 8! I thought about a typo in the domain name, re-typed it and realized that Microsoft just bought the domain.
Same goes with their new search engine : the domain name is bing.com, but if you type f**kbing.com in your adress bar…You’ll be redirected to the search engine domain name.
To limit negative criticism, Microsoft simply registered the “anti” domain names. Not very good for free speech, but good for your brand.
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If I may be so bold as to add one to your list. Setting up Google Alerts with your name, Twitter Name. Brand and Business has proven very effective in reporting the results and use of your name or brand etc…You may be pleasantly or unpleasantly “depending” on how often you or your brand may be the subject of conversation with or without your knowledge.
It doesn’t cost anything and requires only a few moments of your time.
Cheers,
@Butch : Very nice idea, thanks for sharing it with us!
Good thoughts. I have been fortunate in this area, but I’m sure someone doesn’t like me, so I’m now on guard!
U always going and get the Twitter user name as soon as I start a new project – even thought I don’t use it for months after that.
No. 1 is the most important. I know people who lost real opportunities because they couldn’t keep their mouth shut.
About the .com, definitely YES. But I’d get the .net too (maybe .biz).
And while we’re at the social media chapter, why not get your FaceBook username and page ID too?
I know that gMail is “the s**t”
right now, and there are many people fromt he corporate world who have adopted it, BUT. There are still people coming from “the age” when Yahoo mail ruled the world. If you can get a hold on to that ID, get it. You don’t have to use it. You can always forward it.
No. 7. I remember that campaign. I supported it too with one of my old websites.
Man, how much I hate coding with IE6 in mind…
@Alex : Thanks for the idea! I “still” use Yahoo mail, even if Gmail is better. hehe
If it’s serious business, better
1. get all the available important TLD’s (.com, .net, .org, .biz, even .mobi incase you want to go mobile later). Think about 2nd level country domain names too – see Google.
2. It’s not just Twitter or Facebook, but all important social media networks and sites. We don’t want our name shown up on there babbling non sense or even harmful information don’t we? Imagine this guy registered as catswhoblog and talking sh!t all over the place: Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, Delicious etc etc…
Just my 0.02
“Get the Twitter username”
Ugh! Thanks for reminding me this. I just moved my blog to a new domain name this week and I thought I wouldn’t need the twitter’s username until much later. Better safe than sorry! (I quickly registered a new twitter profile after reading your post)
quite a useful list
Right now number 1 relates to me. Telling anyone, strangers or friends, about ideas is like inviting a thief into your house and showing them around only to have them rob you a day later.
Great post, gonna keep these in mind for all my future branding related stuffs
General comment to CatswhoCode/catswhoblog. I am not a great developer but your sites are great and add enormous value both in content and coding tips. Thank a mil! Ingrid
@Ingrid : Thanks for the kind words!
Great post, I’m more interested in graphics & content being stolen, still don’t get much about how to Go about it. Thanks for the post though!
Also, before I forget, please tell me your gonna optimize your site for mobile devices!? Frequent visitor through an iPhone, it’s my only way to read & study from your site & others.
- MexiChriS
“Also, iPhones have a “.com” button, but not “.net” or “.us” button.”
Actually, if you press and hold the “.com” button, a menu will pop-up with alternate TLDs, including .net and .org.