BiggerPockets

Hello Ken,
Most "experts" say to use a made up name. From experience I would suggest that you do that. Good Luck.

Typically, people recommend using a name with certain keywords in it like real estate, the city you work in, etc. This is mostly for SEO, search engine optimization. At this point, most of the good names are likely taken, but if you're clever, you can probably come up with something good.

I think the most important qualifier would be, what is your purpose of the website. To pull prospects off of search engines, or to give to people you meet.
To pull prospects off of search engines, yes, an SEO optimized domain name is important, even if it not easily remembered(spelling, dashes, .net, .com. biz, etc...)
To give to people you meet, the easiest name to remember is more important, and to have your own personal name as the domain is best.
Now, .name domains are available and there is a good chance that your name will be easily acquired.

All the best!

My advice is to not spend too much time worrying about the domain name. Bottom line is that your business will succeed or fail based on whether or not you are providing a GREAT product or service, not because of your domain name. I don't know of a single website that does AWESOME b/c of its name if it has a truly rotten product, but I know some crazy domain names that do fantastic (biggerpockets for one) b/c they offer a better product.

The only thing I would recommend is picking something that you don't have to say twice or spell out for people to know how to get there. "kpcile" is a rotten name but "pickle" is great b/c everyone knows what it is and how to spell it. I've made the mistake before of a complex name with hyphens, odd spelling, etc. and it was a mess. Took 5 minutes to explain to everyone I met how to find me later. The days where people navigated to your site by blinding typing in what they were looking for are gone. Google and business cards get the job done and people care much less if it's a .net, .biz, etc.

I would add one other thing. I recently created a domain for myself that is for my own personal stuff. I used the .name extension because I wanted people to know that they were dealing with me and not some company. So if you're going to get the .com address I would also suggest you get the .name address. They're cheap and you can just have one of them redirect to the other site.

Morne, if you're having trouble deciding whether to use your name or a KW rich domain, you may consider getting both. Just make sure to point both domains at your server, as setting up two different hosts can flag you with the search engines as being duplicate content.

This is such an important point for new web developers!

I have a real estate web client who insisted, no matter how many hours I argued about it, on having a great big huge run-on domain name sort of like:

searchrealestateandrentalsinthisisasamplecountyusa.com

It's been a nightmare to try to remember what the domain name is when trying to set up email accounts, ftp, etc. for this person. Plus, it looks simply horrible on a business card.

Finally, I talked her into using a simple name that anyone could remember and anyone could spell. The simple domain name had to do with the location and then I put a redirct on that domain. Clean and simple works so much better.

I think your name could work great if your focus is telling people about your site via print media or in person. Build up the content and you should be able to do fine in the search engines, too. If you had a foreign or complicated name, however, I don't think this would be a good strategy.

Deborah

I have a lot of clients using their own name for their site. My primary "about me" site does too and it's a launching paid for the others. But, my profession is a bit different. Nonetheless lots in real estate are doing this. Sometimes using your name like JoeSchmoehomes.com is useful if you're in the RE profession.

Dani Babb, PhD

Would if I could. And name recognition can be important for you or your company, depending on how you want to be known.

Ken,

In my opinion the name of your site should be a reflection of the type of marketing that you expect to drive traffic to your sight.

For example, I have an "informational" blog. 90% of my traffic comes from google searches. I knew that this would be most effective when I started so I purchased a domain that featured the key words that I was targeting.

However, If I felt that I would drive most traffic through local channels (print, word of mouth, b-cards) the I would have gone with something personal.

I think you are on track by using your name.

Just my thoughts.