In the nearly four and a half years that I’ve been blogging, my blog’s URL and name have changed a few times. I know it’s annoying, and I thank you for sticking around. And I’m sorry for the following question, but I am having a bit of an identity crisis and I need help.
Regular readers of this blog know that last year I got married, and subsequently changed my name from Megan Goodchild to Megan Morris. While Megan Goodchild was a great name to use online, where consistency is key, it was a pain in the ass in real life most of the time. (”Oh and are you a good child? Heeheehee!” Yeah good one there, Dane Cook, you’re totally the first person I’ve heard that from in 30 years. )
Megan Morris, on the other hand, is an awesome real-life name (I realized shortly after changing my name that I was flinching before saying my maiden name out loud. And as a bonus, Megan Morris has a nice alliteration to it and kind of sounds like it could belong to a redheaded siren holding a pint of Guinness in one hand while punching a leprechaun with the other), but nonetheless it has posed some problems for my online identity.
When I registered this domain, I was trying to decide between megmorris.com and meganmorris.net. I decided against the .net convention, and was somewhat OK with megmorris because 1. my mom and sisters call me Meg, and 2. if you take into consideration my initials including my maiden name, megmorris accurately reflects my name (Megan Emily Goodchild Morris).
But here’s the problem: I don’t want to retain my maiden name. And nobody but my mom and sisters (and the occasional old friend) calls me Meg, so when I get emails or tweets from someone I barely know calling me Meg, it kind of freaks me out a bit.
Several months ago I set up a new Google ID and Gmail account for this new name, which was tricky in itself. Google doesn’t allow you to use IDs that are anywhere close to what someone else has, so even though someone had already taken meganmorris, I couldn’t be megan.morris. I think even megmorris was taken, so I eventually decided to incorporate my middle name and selected meganemilymorris. I have never used my middle name for anything, personal or professional, but it seems to work and I like it just fine for a secondary email address and a Google ID.
Which brings me to my current quandary: Do I keep this blog here and build out my main website on megmorris.com as well, even though I’m not super happy with the domain? Or do I move everything over to meganemilymorris.com, which I already own, to kind of make things more consistent (and reflect my name more accurately)? Or is there something else I should do entirely? I’m looking for a solution that keeps search-engine optimization in mind but also reflects me.
(And waiting for meganmorris.com to open up doesn’t seem to be an option. There’s a chick blogging there who doesn’t seem like she’s going to quit any time soon. And I think emailing her to ask if she’s married or planning on getting that way seems a bit, um, creepy.)
So what say you, Internet marketing specialists? Or anyone? Thoughts?
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Comments ( 5 )
I’m kinda having the same debate right now with my new name.
If you’re not happy with your current one, I vote for changing it. To what….I dunno. The only problem I see with meganemilymorris.com is that it might be more difficult to find you if I don’t know your middle name. But then, being hard to find is not always a bad thing…
Brandy Lee added these pithy words on
Nov 24 09 at
9:22 pm
You could go with meganemorris.com, which has the added bonus of referencing the Renault Mégane, which will be amusing (in a good way) to the tiny fraction of the American population who’ve even heard of the Mégane.
Or you could go with something that isn’t your name, and be megan@whateverthatis.com. Pretend you’re a Jane Smith, or a Laura Johnson. What would Jane and Laura get for a person domain?
Andrew Duthie added these pithy words on
Nov 24 09 at
9:38 pm
Andrew I just looked up the Mégane… nice looking car!
I was just thinking that from a more professional standpoint, it might be good to have a domain that reflects my name, but that might just be me being picky. Or narcissistic?
Megan added these pithy words on
Nov 24 09 at
10:09 pm
I can totally understand this quandry, and I go through it a lot, too. I never really liked the option of using my first+last names as a web presence (because my last name is so common I’d have no hope at all of getting it), and tend to use just elizabetht on sites, which is just because I got lucky early on. This is a tough call, but what strikes me most about reading is is that you don’t really like using megmorris. So go with that! Using your middle name would help distinguish you from other Megan Morrises out there, although I also like meganemorris.
And as for the professional aspect of having a domain with your own name, I don’t know if that matters as much now as it might have three years ago.. so many people have blogs that aren’t their names that I think that would be okay, too.
elizabetht added these pithy words on
Nov 25 09 at
11:17 am
Here’s my 2 cents. I think if you can’t have exactly what people would Google you as, then you should pick something else entirely.
Here’s a weird one on me. I’ve owned lauracreekmore.com for 10 years, but I have never really used it except to redirect to other domains I owned. I am just now about to start using it for something on its own.
Laura Creekmore added these pithy words on
Nov 27 09 at
9:32 am
