Self promo faux pas

There is a long standing debate as to whether you should use your real name, or a brand name, for your portfolio URL. Personally, I use a brand name because no one can spell my last name correctly. As a matter of fact, my last name (“Scarbrough”) is a misspelling! According to a variety of towns, cities, counties, a former Florida congressmen (of no relation), junk mail, the IRS, and general public opinion, it is meant to be spelled “Scarborough”. What a mess.

So I used a pseudonym with wonderful effect (or so I thought).

Yesterday I met with a new client who, I came to find out, had been desperately trying to find my portfolio site. He didn’t know the address, and Google wasn’t bringing it up based on his searches. I have meta tags (how hot would it be if you could set your meta tags in Meta? Sorry, type joke, moving on), I link my site on forum posts across the web, I put it in my e-mail signatures, ect. ect. ect.

Really, I should be readily accessible. But I wasn’t, and it could’ve cost me the client. I shudder to think how many times I wasn’t saved by the grace of someone with a bit more than typical patience.

Last night, to fix the problem once and for all, I spent a few bucks and registered two new domains — one including the appropriate spelling, the other including the common spelling, of my last name. They will automatically forward to my main site (once they activate), and should catch anyone searching for me. Going forward, I’ll continue to use my pseudonym because it seems to work 98% of the time, and now I should be fully covered.

I highly recommend this to everyone else who has a portfolio site. If you use a brand name, register your name (and any common misspellings) as well. Domains are cheap, lost clients / jobs are not.