Email/Domain names--make 'em easy!

D works as a network administrator at a hospital here in Baltimore. They’ve created an email naming convention that, for me, is beyond stupid. It’s a person’s first initial, and then up to seven characters of the last name. And this works well for Dominic Brice whose address becomes dbrice@thehospitaldomain.com. But let’s say I were unmarried, my name were still Stacy Wiedenhoeft, and I worked there. I’d be unpleasantly stuck with swiedenh@thehospitaldomain.com. Can you imagine? Cant' say it out loud, and can't really spell it in any way that makes sense to someone listening. It's just stupid!

I rib him about this naming convention all the time because he doesn’t get why it’s archaic and crappy.

Fast forward to today. He just built a computer for his mother, set it up, and signed her up for a Gmail account. And when he was creating an address for her, what email address did he give her? Well, to protect her from being written to about this, let’s pretend her name is Erika Landry. He created ErLandry@gmail.com, Now, that wouldn’t be stupid if anyone called her Er…but they don’t. Which makes it stupid, especially since ErikaLandry@ was available, as was ELandry@ and a variety of other creative, smarter choices.

A Fergie lyric comes to mind: “I’m so two-thousand-and-eight; you’re so two-thousand-and-late.”

We (and the tech we use) has moved so far beyond the days when it was “strange” and “uncommon” to have an email address or a domain. So why are people still stuck thinking with minds that still see things that way?

But it’s not just D, or the place he works. I see entrepreneurs (including VAs) create lousy email addresses all the time.

And what, in my opinion, would make them better is today's Bit O’Moxie:

1. Stop truncating. It’s unnecessary. Although it may be necessary for a corporate entity running some old version of an email program, it’s not necessary for almost anyone reading this blog.

2. Create something easy to spell/type, easy to remember, and easy for another person to understand if you have to say it aloud. I dare say that if I had swiedenh@thehospitaldomain.com and I had to verbally share that over the phone, it would take several tries before the other person would actually have it. And for what? Trust me, wasting time and dealing with high frustration are not high on the list of things that leave me feeling energized and happy.

3. Wherever possible, don’t use dashes, underscores, or periods. The brain can more easily take in “stacy brice at gmail dot com” than it can take in “stacy dot brice at gmail.com” or stacy dash brice at gmail dot com. If you have to use some punctuation because there's no other imaginable choice, choose a period.

4. Also give up punctuation when choosing a domain name, because, not only will the domain be difficult to understand, but an email address attached to a difficult-to-understand domain becomes increasingly difficult to understand. swiedenh@the-hospital-domain.com would be beyond ridiculous for people to have to deal with. If you’re in the process of choosing a domain—especially in connection with the process of naming your company or product--please, do yourself and your markets a favor and choose based on ease, rather than on your attachment to something specific.

Don’t register www.where-the-silly-eyes-live.com because you like the sound of it, and you’ve become attached to naming your kids’ book, Where The Silly Eyes Live, when www.sillyeyes.com is available. And if what you want isn’t available in any easily created version? Change the name. Being found is important. So is being remembered. If “silly” eyes didn’t work, change it to “squggly” eyes, or “kooby” eyes (or any short made up word that no one will have taken the domain for).

And a funny company name-related story came to mind just now so I'll share it. My friend Lee owns Greased Wheel Virtual Assistance (a fab VA she is!). Appropriately, you'll be glad to hear, her domain is www.greasedwheel.com, and she's "lee at greasedwheel dot com" (yay Lee!).

But her biz credit card company, with only a certain number of characters available to print on the face of a credit card, put this on the front of her card: Greased Wheel Virtual Ass. Honest.

And I was thinking that that's a perfectly good example of something truncated that's just ... well....for me it's funny (and sad). Now imagine if Lee had been crazy enough to register that as a domain? What image would she create with www.greasedwheelvirtualass.com? Seriously. Just think about it.

I really do hold the space for there to be people who have really good reasons for having difficult or stupid email addresses or domains. I just also think that the numbers of those are infinitesimal. With creativity and a willingness to find something good and easy, it really can be done.

Be smart. Create smartly. Make things easy—on yourself and your clients.

Comments

[Anne Ferguson]

As someone who went with www.va-anne.com LONG ago, couldn't agree more!!

[Lee Marshall]

While the "Virtual Ass" thing certainly is a conversation starter, and the foundation for sooooo many jokes, I would really have prefered Greased Wheel VA or GWVA. But, it's my signature thing now! Another example of "just stupid" is Tim's work email, timothy02.marshall@companyname. I understand that a huge company will likely have more than one employee with the same name, but "timothy02", really???

[Julia]

Thanks for this post. I have always wondered why some companies use those strange chopped up versions of people's names for emails. However, I must admit the best part of the post for me was the giggle I got from Lee's credit card name. I think I would insist on another one. :)

[Leslie]

Great suggestions, Stacy! I guess it could have been worse for your friend if they left out the word "Wheel".

Lee, I assume the name of your company is on the basis that a greased wheel runs smoothly just like your business. However, my first thought was that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" as in you work with clients that complain a lot! If that's the case, I may have a few referrals for you - LOL.