Should You Get A Domain With Your Name?

Is there a good reason to purchase a domain name of your name? If you wanted to, the question is would yourname com, yourname org, or yourname.net, still be available? If it is, I highly recommend that you get it immediately.

Here's one compelling reason. Once taken, you can rarely get them back. If your name is not available, then this issue is moot

Just after the dot com bust, I attended a USANA convention. At that time I was a distributor. I listened to a speech by Denis Waitley, a renowned motivational speaker. He stated that crash didn't mean eCommerce was doomed. Quite the contrary. The Internet was on track to create new opportunities for everyone who was willing to jump in. Why not take action by owning your name in this virtual real estate?

Fortunately my name with a .com extension was still available, so I purchased it. Six months after joining Wealthy Affiliate I had that domain transferred over. I let it remain dormant for many years. When it came up for renewal last month, I forgot to do it. And I would have lost it forever if it wasn't for Wealthy Affiliate reminding me. If I let one more month slip, it would have been good bye edwinbernard dot com. I renewed it immediately and put it on auto renew. How I didn't do that in the first place, is a mystery to me.

My Website Plans

Not only did I renew, I started building my new website. About a year ago I joined a coaching group created by a very successful business executive I know. He felt that my lives experiences should encourage me to write several books. That gave me an idea that I want to share and get your opinion.

Sharing Lessons Learned

Since I was a young boy, I have learned many valuable life lessons. I want to use them to help others learn through my mistakes. Instead of writing a book, why not write stories in my website in the form of blog posts?

May I summarize the trajectory of my life first before I tell you about the website structure I have in mind? You may have read tid bits in my blog posts here. Hence, some aspects of what you will read may sound familiar.

Overview

My life began in India just before that country won its independence from the British. I was the oldest child and had three siblings, a brother, and two sisters. My brother and I attended boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. Our family emigrated to England when I was a teen. Hence, my grade school education spanned two countries.

An Eventful Year

The year I graduated from the University of Liverpool was very eventful. Man landed on the Moon. Woodstock happened. And the Beatles broke up. Before starting my career, I went on a round trip overland cultural expedition from England to India. With 499 other students and young adults, on twenty, student-driven and managed coaches.

California Here We Come

Eventually, I ended up in California via Canada. I got a job offer in LA I couldn't refuse. My wife and I got married in Las Vegas in the early 1980s. We. attended the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1984 Olympic Games, as well as other events in Los Angeles. Unfortunately we couldn't have children, so my wife and I adopted our son from Mother Theresa's orphanage in Calcutta. But first, we had to become US Citizens.

Traveling The World

As part of my job, and privately, we traveled the world. We love to travel. At last count I have either lived or visited 25 countries on three continents.

Going on cruises is another form of travel my wife and I love to do. When we were both kids and didn't know each other, our families emigrated to England by passenger ships. At that time jet travel was new and more costly.

Our most exciting cruise was on the maiden voyage the Queen Mary 2 from Los Angeles to Hawaii.om 2006. This was to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

Life After Retirement

The Great Recession of 2008-2009, created untold challenges that have affected our lives ever since. Both in negative and positive ways.

Our son has grown up and has kids of hos own now. He moved to another State. My wife and I have both retired from our careers. I joined Wealthy Affiliate to learn how to create an online business. Neither my wife nor I are sitting idle as she is active involved in a leadership role in a National non-profit charitable women's organization.

Can you see the possibilities to create intriguing stories? And definitely with lessons learned.

Website Structure

Instead of writing chronologically, I am considering using themes to form the basis of the stories. Such as:

1. Life In countries were I lived in
2. Grade School Education in India and England
3. University Experience In England
4. Jobs I had
5. Residences
6. Countries visited
7. Friendships forged, individuals of all ages
8. Family upbringing
9. The countries my siblings settled down - we all live in different countries
10. Accidents
11. Driving mishaps
12. The Earthquake we lived through of 1994
13. The 1984 Olympics
14. My Leadership Experiences
15. How Toastmasters helped me
16. My heart attack
17. Transition between resident countries - there have been four
18. The road to US Citizenship
19. My side musical activities
20. Musical instruments owned
21. My meeting with celebrities
22. Vehicles owned
23. Road trips
24. Life and death
25. Concerts
26. Mentoring
27. Coaching
28. Investing
29. Celebrations
30. Pets

Some of the above themes could be covered with a single blog post. While others would require several.

I followed Jay Neill's advice and used Generate Press as my website theme. I am also using the block editor.

Publishing Frequency Of Stories

I would have to stick to a publishing frequency of one per week. Probably on a Monday evening. Since I know my topics well, the stories should flow freely.

In plan to include relevant pictures for illustration. As well as geographical references.

Monetizing Ideas

As a student of affiliate marketing I would be amiss not to consider opportunities to earn some money. There are a lot of things I like. These fall into various niches. However, this website is essentially an autobiography that gives me quite a bit of flexibility regarding what products or services I choose to write about and promote.

In plan to share these products in the form of reviews that I will publish in between the weekly stories. I consider these as "commercials" on my website. I will let my readers know that the purpose of these reviews is to share information of products and services I like as a way to help defray the cost of maintaining my website.

Since I already have an existing affiliate marketing site, I shall be using this for some of my external links where appropriate. For example, when I talk about ways to earn money, I can send visitors to my Wealthy Affiliate review.

Book

If I find my stories attract a following, at some point I could write one or more books using the content from my blog posts as writing material. This could become a money making idea well in the future,

One can only dream. Right?

Feedback

Do you think that my plans above to develop a website bearing my name makes sense? Are there any pieces of advice you would like to give me?

I have not come across a website quite like this. But then, I have not actively looked. Perhaps I should as part of my research.

If you already have purchased a domain bearing your name and have not developed it yet, perhaps this will give you some ideas to consider.

Thanks for reading and I hope you do leave some comments below.

Cheers.

Edwin