It’s now easier than ever to own your own online identity but it still isn’t simple enough. I’m going to go through some tips, tricks, and tools you can use to really own your online identity. By “online identity” I’m not referring to your Facebook profile; I’m talking about what people see when they type your name into Google. Trust me when I say that people want to learn more about you and are searching for you on the internet (around 100 searches for “benjamin golub” and “ben golub” every month reach this blog). Potential employees, friends, and complete strangers are trying to find you and if you own your online identity you can control what they learn and sway their first impressions.
Domain Name
It all starts with a domain name; mine is benjamingolub.com. For around $10 per year you can purchase your own domain name. You don’t need to buy hosting (expensive); just a domain name will do. I stress that you choose something professional for your domain and definitely go with a .com. You cannot do better than firstnamelastname.com. Some people might scoff at the idea of being so public with your real name but trust me: your name is already all over the internet. By purchasing a domain containing your real name you are controlling your online identity. Domains are purchased from a registrar like Go Daddy or DreamHost; any registrar will do but it’s best to choose a well known company that gives you full control over DNS (which is how you will later point your domain to various services). Again, you do not need to buy hosting which is going to be at least $10 per month; you only need the domain.
Blog
Now that you’ve got a domain name (we’ll use firstnamelastname.com for our examples) it’s time to do something with it. By far the best way to own your online identity is to start a blog. Without paying for expensive hosting you have a few options here.
You can use WordPress (which powers this blog) for $10 per year or you can use Blogger for free. Both have their pros and cons. Wordpress blogs tend to make commenting easier (but there are solutions like Disqus that make Blogger better) but Blogger lets you upload your own templates. I lean heavily towards Blogger just because it’s free and simple. Sign up for Blogger and follow the custom domain instructions and you’ll quickly have a blog up and running at firstnamelastname.com. Start blogging and pretty soon you’re likely to become the top search result for your name. Now you are controlling what visitors learn about you based on what you write about.
The next step is to get mail working for your domain. This is a very important and often overlooked step towards owning your professional online identity. It looks much nicer when you are emailing potential employees from firstname@firstnamelastname.com instead of firstname.lastname@gmail.com.
This used to be the most difficult part of the process; requiring hosting and complicated setups. But now Google Apps makes it drop dead simple and free. Google Apps will take care of all of your email and let you use the outstanding Gmail web interface but with your own domain instead of @gmail.com. You can make 100 accounts for free (each with over 6GB) but you’re likely to only need one (with aliases). I forward all email into my personal Gmail account so I don’t even need to check two accounts. Google Apps will also let you setup a custom URL to access your email. Instead of remembering a complicated URL you can simply visit mail.firstnamelastname.com to access your email. You’ll also get POP3 and IMAP access in case you don’t want to use the Gmail web interface. Google Apps will take you step by step through the (relatively simple) process of setting up mail for your domain.
Other Services
Now you can go nuts and sign up for other services. Twitter is another good way to control your online identity. LinkedIn is great for your professional contacts. Whatever you end up using make sure you are public about it (try to use the same real name for all of your accounts) and attempt to tie it all back into your blog so there is one central location under your control that defines your online identity. You’re now well on your own to owning your online identity.
