Have you thought about how important your email address is to your business? It's all part of your branding. I saw a funny post on a forum this week which outlined different email addresses that told it all - desperate for a job, desperate for a partner, just desperate and so on. Some email addresses look too much like spammer's addresses.

When you're in business you need to be taken seriously - even on forums like this one. So your username and email address are an important part of your identity for your business and will help with your branding.

Even if you don't have a website yet it doesn't hurt to get a domain name and use it for your email addresses. Later when the website comes you'll already have your domain and your email address won't need to be changed.

What a great post Kathie. I sometimes wonder what thought, if any, people put into picking a name or an email address. I also agree with using the email address of your domain. I don't think it looks good for persons in business to be using their hotmail or yahoo address.

__________________
Carlana Charles - Ciboney Virtual Solutions
Web: http://ciboneyvirtual.com Blog:http://ciboneyvirtual.com/blog

Excellent post, I couldn't agree more. When I decided to start this business the first thing I looked for was a short domain name and decided on my company name based on that. Short domain names make it easier to give out an email address.

Great point Kathie, and something that is so often overlooked, even if accidentally. Every aspect of the way we communicate online and off reflects on our business.

__________________

Are you ready to stop dreaming and start DOING?
Join the next Virtual Assistant Business Jumpstart beginning May 8th!

At the same time, I think it is a good idea to have a non-domain email address related to your business. For instance, I have NowAssistingYou at a popular online email address that I use when I sign up for things like Yahoo Groups and forums. That way the loads of emails aren't taking away bandwidth from my site and it lowers the chances of spam to my regular website address. By the way, I use a small script on my site to prevent email harvesters from getting my address - so far it's working. ;-)

Since we're on the subject of email addresses, there are some you should avoid completely even though they might seem like obvious choices like: info@yourdomainname.com, contact@yourdomainname.com, webmaster@youdomainname.com etc etc - spammers that have only harvested your domain name will use these common prefixes to spam you.

__________________
Jeanne
NowAssistingYou.com
Virtual Assistant :: Web/Blog Design & Hosting :: Writer

Good points Jeanne. I'm one of those who has had an email address since mid 90s and every man and his dog has it on their lists now so it gets heaps of spam. But I use a spam filter that seems to arrest most of that problem.

I have an email address I use specifically for group forums which helps separate forum email from client email.

Actually, professional spammers will take ANY email address they can grab and use it to spam others. So, there is no foolproof safeguard against professional spammers harvesting your email address and using it.

I've had this experience all too often recently and actually had to have the ISP institute software on the server in an effort to fight this battle; and some still hasn't been totally resolved.

Sharon, if you have your email address exposed on your site (as opposed to a contact form), try this little encoder - since you're already on 'the list' for spam it can't really do quite as much good as it would with a 'fresh' address but it *will* cut spam back over the long haul.

__________________

Are you ready to stop dreaming and start DOING?
Join the next Virtual Assistant Business Jumpstart beginning May 8th!

Great post, I agree.

Kerri-Ann

Thanks for some very useful tips there! I have my normal web based account, as I am so confused over domain names and costs (why are some cheap and some not??), so I just used a free one. I didn't even think of setting one up with my business name - thanks Jeanne - too many other things to think of when setting up I suppose.

Cheers,
Marie