By: Vicki Meza, Director of Member & Partner Relations, ZANA Business Network

Many times, the first business impression you make on others is from your website or an email address.  Does your email address look professional or does it scream “for personal use only”?  Does your web address (or URL) include the name of your business or are you giving your domain name service star billing? 

Both the email and URL addresses say things about you and your business that can positively or negatively impact potential customers.  Just as you should “dress for success” when you interview for a job, your email address and URL should convey the same professionalism.  They should positively reflect the name or nature of your business.

What is a professional email address?

A professional email address communicates information about you or your business.  Using the name of John Doe, here are a few good and bad examples:

john.doe@companyABC.com 
Providing the first and last name and the business name is easy to remember (for sharing) and easy for others to remember. 

jdoe@companyABC.com
Again, this is a very professional format because the contact and business name are available.

Johndoe.superguy06@hotmail.com 
In this case, the only valuable information is the name of the person.  The reference to “superguy06” makes this email address unprofessional and personal.

Luckygirl2009@gmail.com
This email address also does not provide helpful information about the contact name or the business. 

If you do not appear professional in your email address, clients and potential customers will not take you seriously, which will cost you business.

What is a professional URL address?

A professional URL address should tell you something about the business, whether it’s the name of the business or descriptive word(s) about the product or service that is being sold.  A good example is a company named Green Landscaping Service. 

The URL could be www.greenlandscapingservice.com, which tells customers or prospects two things: the company uses green technology and products and what type of service is provided.

However, if your company URL is something like www.greenmachine486.com, you know that the company has something to do with the color green or is an environmental company, but its products or services are unknown. 

When creating your web URL address, you want to keep it simple and easy to remember.  Although it may be fun to use characters, unique spellings and excessively long addresses, it is more difficult for your clients or customers to remember it.  The point here is to make it practically effortless for your customers to find you on the web to increase traffic to your site.  This can result in higher customer counts and product/service sales.

Your email and web addresses can serve as free or low cost marketing tools for positive self promotion, or they can communicate negative or indifferent messages to the world about you and your business.  What’s in a name?  It could be your bottom line.