What Do I Need To Get Online?

Follow up on yesterday’s post, where do you start if you’re looking to get online?
Firstly, congratulations on making the big step – These are exciting times!

Next, listen to the Wall Street Journal. They have a good, albeit a bit confusing, article “A Web Presence Without A Website“. If you take out the confusing part (no website, but a blog site, etc.), the underlying goal is to get started somewhere.

Regardless of what you call it, you’ll have to start somewhere. My preference is to first walk through a single non-website/blog site activity:

Pick out a word or phrase that will identify you on the Internet

A few things to keep in mind:

• You’ll carry this around with you forever
• It will be tied to your email address
• It will be tied to your blog site address
• It will be tied to your web site address
• This will become your brand, the “I” in Internet branding, marketing, etc.
• This is you
• In other words, think about this a bit

Next, go visit a domain registration site and check to see if the word or phrase, or variation of the word or phrase, is available for purchase as a domain name. If so, grab it. Now.

From there, you can start doing what makes sense for you. Create a Tumblr site and hook it into your domain. Grab a WordPress site and do the same. Set up your email account so it works with your computer / laptop / phone / tablet.

See? That domain is important.