What's in a name...

I'm making a pretty big move in the business side of my photography later this month and designing a more professional webpage. I'll probably post a few questions in the coming weeks, but first, a very simple one.

There seems to be two schools of thought on the web address / business name. Do I name it along the grounds of what I like to shoot or who I am.

A little background. I only intend to shoot nature photography, not inspired by sports, portraiture or weddings, and only intend to have this grow to serious hobby level, not a full time endevour.

Examples:

Group 1:
jimsalge.com
jimsalgephotography.com
jimsalgephoto.com
or something similar...

or

Group 2:
cloudscapephotography.com
whitemountainphoto.com
NHnaturephoto.com
something along those lines...

Just want to get impressions for those who have had success with either. Or does it make sense to register two names, and link to one site? This all obviously has implications with business cards, advertising, etc...

Thanks in advance.
Jim

I suggest you register both if they are available. My site comes up as both guytal.com and scenicwild.com.

Guy

We've been ducking the website issue for our business for a lot of reasons, among them the name of our business. If in your wildest dreams the business becomes a roaring success and you decide to sell it some day, having named it for yourself creates all sorts of problems. The web may be different, but I contributed my thoughts on naming a brick and mortar business in this thread over at the NPN Photo Marketing forum.

Hi Jim,
I'd recommend to avoid names as "cloudscapephotography.com" I'd never remember it!

I think that a good name for a website should be as easy to remember as possible...IHMO jimsalge.com is the best choice.

I believe in keeping it simple. My site is simply my name and nothing else...it's easy to remember and easy to type.

Whatever you pick, keep it short. www.danborzynskiimages.com (my personal website) is way too long and the last name is completely hopeless to commit to memory. Not the best business decision on my part.

Using your name, if you go that route, will work better as it is far easier to remember.

Register both. Using your name is usually an easier domain to get, as long as your name isn't smith or something else common. This also gives you the flexibility to change your style and focus down the road. It's is also often the first stop whe someone is looking for your work on the web.

With a name like cloudscapephotography.com, how do you decide to move your focus to portraits, or even flowers? However a name like that will draw people to you that are searching for scenic sky images. I have about 15 domain names that I have picked up and use off and on. They all point to the same website at the moment, though sometimes different sections.

I use my name for my site. I considered trying to think of something fancy, inspiring, etc. for a while, but eventually settled on just my name for a variety of reasons:

1. Easy for people to remember.
2. Easy to type
3. Not tied to any specific type of photography
4. Couldn't think of anything better.
5. Lots of photographers I respect name their companies after themselves. If it works for them, it should work for me.
6. And the main reason would be that it would help get my name out there. Sure, with some photographers, I associate the name of the photographer with the name of the company (i.e. Tom Mangelson and "Images of Nature). But that doesn't happen often. I would prefer it if people found my site because they knew my name, or knew who I was because they knew of my web site.

While I believe Hank has a good point, I have no delusions as to the future of my business. My business will be me, and my photography. I have no plans to grow the business enough that I would sell it to someone.

So, for my situation, it seemed to make the most sense to stick with my name. brentmurphyphoto.com.

Hi Jim!! I agree with the others. I am using christineadamsphotography.com as my site name. People do remember your name much easier than a "stage name".

I look forward to viewing your site!!!

I suggest using your name. While I am not an expert, I believe, at least in NY, if you use your name as the main component of your business you may operate as a sole proprietorship. This allows you to combine your business income (loss) with your personal earned income on your tax return. This could allow you to write off photography losses against your personal income. My accountant has advised me that I could do the same without using my name in the business name, but it is a lot more complicated and I would need to formally register the business. So the name for my photography business is:
"Dr. Edward Cordes, Natures Vision Photography". This is how I pay sales tax and this is how I fill out my schedule "C" on my income tax. My website is www.ecordesphotography.com.

Good luck with your new business.

You can always go with more than one way to your web site. I started with stearnsphotography.com. You can also get to my site via stearnsphotography.net and stearnsphoto.net. I also wanted to use stearnsphoto.con, but it was already taken. I could also have other URL's pointed to the same site. This is a common practice among bigger companies to keep others from horning in on their business. I have noticed that other here have more than one URL and, in some cases, more than one web site. If you choose jimsalgephotography.com, I would suggest that you also register jimsalgephoto.com as it is easier to type in. You could also use whitemountainphoto.com as a description of what you photograph. If you register the names through some place like GoDaddy, it costs less than $10/year/URL. That does NOT mean that you have to use GoDaddy as a host. My names are registered through eNOM and GoDaddy and my host is Denverwebhost. Choose what you like and run with it. Judicious use of keywords and text, especially on the index page, will place you in the sights of the search engines, which is where most people find you anyway, at least I thinnk so.

I wish you luck Jim!!!

Well this is a hard one. My close photography friend does marine wildlife, website www.marinethemes.com I'm about to use a "stage name" also, it's no harder than punching in your personal name and well, if you have a odd last name also you don't have to worry about misspelling. I will from now on only be shooting panoramic nature images so I will have www.naturespanorama.com.au

I personally also don't understand having your name with photography on the end, i thought people looking for your site already knew you do photography, or if you do want that why not just put photo, lot shorter to type. So in my case I would have www.keithanderson.com.

Personally I'm having three domain names.The registered domain I have above, a straight .com and my name.com. All will lead to my Australian site