As soon as you come up with a name for your home staging business, you should waste no time in grabbing the domain name for it. If you don’t know what a domain name is, it’s the technical term for your website address or URL.

If the domain name for your business isn’t available, that means someone else is probably already using that name for their own business. If you’re tossing around different ideas for names, checking if the domains are available can actually help you make your final decision.

I register my domains at www.GoDaddy.com , it’s a very easy service to use. Domain names usually only cost around $10 per year so it’s not a very significant investment.

Once you have your domain name you’re going to be able to ditch your personal email address and have one that matches your domain to use for your business. This is especially important if you’re using a cutsie email address such as, pookiebear@hotmail.com or something similar. You absolutely can’t use something like that for your business, you need a professional sounding email address.

In my case, one of my email addresses is debra@stagingdiva.com. Another is debra@sixelements.com because sixelements.com is the domain name for my home staging business. When someone wants information on my courses, they’re emailing debra@stagingdiva.com and when they want information about my home staging services, they’re sending email to debra@sixelements.com.

Even if I didn’t have a website set up for those domains, I could still use those addresses in the meantime.

When you register your domain name, you’ll be asked if you want to add an email address – it’s one of the options you’ll be given when you’re registering your name. If you’ve already registered your domain and you missed that step, don’t worry. You can still go back to your domain registrar account and indicate that you want to add an email address.

Then your email address is forwarded to whatever email account you want. If you use a Hotmail account for your personal email, you can take your new email address and forward it there. If you use Outlook, forward it there. Then you can still use the same account you’re used to, but you’ll have different mailboxes to chose from.

Most home stagers who opt to get a listing on the Staging Diva Directory instead of building their own website will still register a domain name for their business name which I highly recommend. That way, they can advertise their own professional email address on their profile.

It’s not a difficult thing to do, to get an email address for your business. If you’re still a bit unsure about how it all works just go to godaddy.com and read through their FAQs or call their 24/7 customer service number and someone will walk you through it.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Through the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, Debra Gould has taught more than 4000 people around the world how to make money as home stagers.

[tags]home stager, home stagers, home staging business, setting up a domain name, professional email address, staging diva, staging diva directory, debra gould[/tags]