I am a staunch believer that all businesses should have their own domain name to seriously be considered by potential clients as being worthy of doing business with. I find it hard to believe that some professional businesses in 2007 still have email addresses like company@ispname.com.au (for example, a company called QRS Corp and that use Bigpond as their ISP publish their email address as being qrscorp@bigpond.com). There was a time where I could excuse some businesses that didn’t rely on email at all, such as tradesman for example, but now my opinion is that a plumber or electrician should have a professional looking online presence.

Today I came across a classic one: I needed to email a lawyer that I’ve been doing some business with, so I found his card and to my amazement his email address is (name changed for privacy reasons!) psmith@hotmail.com! I can only speak for myself, but a lawyer using a hotmail address doesn’t instill me with confidence – in fact it gives me an immediate feeling that something’s dodgy. Now, I know for a fact that this guys is legitimate lawyer and works out of a nice office in the inner suburbs of a big city, but what’s having an email address at hotmail doing for him in terms of attracting business – probably very little.

Domain names are so cheap these days, along with email and web hosting, and so it makes no sense to me to let your business drag behind in the wake of technology by denying it a domain name. There’s a whole new generation of buyers in the market place compared to only a few years ago, and they don’t use the phone to do business or make enquiries; they use websites and email. You will simply be ignored if you don’t appear to have a professional online presence.

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