Sandy,

Matching your name and domain is good, unless your name is too long. In the past I had my domain match my business name and I discovered it was more difficult for people/customers to type then a "similar" name because the business name was too long. For my VA business I choose to use a similar name for the same reason.

My business name is Virtual Resource Services, Inc and this translates into a long domain name, so instead I choose vrsioffice.com. This domain is shorter and is representative of my business name. Furthermore, I always try to buy the .com, .net, and .org versions of my domain. But either of these 3 extensions are popular and are quite acceptable to use for your domain.

PS. As for the .net version of your domain name...technically you are a computer related business. Is there anything more IT/computerese than a VIRTUAL business.

Good Luck,

Julie

__________________
Julie | Virtual Resource Services, Inc (VRSI)
http://www.vrsioffice.com

I think you may want to test out your potential ideas. For example, if you are going with a .net version of your name, what is the .com version? Does that site clearly represent something else? Is it a competitor? Is it an offensive site?

If the site is for something completely unrelated but legitimate it may be easy to use the .net name as people you know may easily notice they should have typed .net. If it's offensive or a compeitior that may not be something you want to inadvertently point your clients to.

I bank at Citizen's Bank - but I did not know there are different Citizen's Banks. If I go to citizensbank .com it is not the same as my bank... but it's still a bank. You can imagine how frustrated I was that my user name did not work! It wasn't until I googled it that I realized there were two different banks and the one I wanted was citizensbanknc .com. Who would have guessed the NC? (For Northern California)

I almost gave up doing business with them out of frustration! But... I did automatically try the .net before googling.

Hope that helps a bit. I would go with .net over .biz (as for the tech thing, that was what it was intended for... but not how it's been used.)

Thanks ladies. I was struggling with this as well. Gotta love these forums!
I'm going to register two, maybe three domains and redirect them to one. But which one to use for my email?

I just coached a new virtual paralegal on this and she ended up deciding on a new name for her business because of it.
There are a few reasons to want the .com versus .net, not the least of which was already mentioned here. People are automatically going to type in the .com. This means you open the possibility of sending business to whomever owns the .com address or confuse those searching for your business online. Only a very small percentage of searchers ever think to try .net or .biz, etc.
I know that lots of businesses have shortened their names or abbreviated, etc. in order to have their website on a .com because their business name was already registered when they went to start a website. While in some cases it ends up working out ok, I have to wonder how many potential clients and/or customers they lose because PC's couldn't find them when typing in their actual business name.com.
This is an excellent reason why you should do a domain search before deciding on your business name, even if you don't think you want a website.
If you're too far into the game to change your business name to something that you can purchase the .com for, then I'd use the alternative of using your name. In fact, I just purchased tinamariehilton.com and tinamariehilton.me. and for now will just have them forwarded to my Clerical Advantage site.

__________________
~Tina Marie Hilton of Clerical Advantage
& author of the VA Survival Guide & Workbook

I hope my domain name isn't too long...its the same as my business name:

myvirtualassistantservice.com

Jody

I need to switch my domain name to reflect the current and legal name of my company which differs from what I thought it would be. Does this mean I have to rebuild my whole website again? Anyhelp?