Have you ever had to go through the hassle of notifying all of your friends and acquaintances about a change in your email address after switching ISP’s or some other event that required you to get a new one? Worse still, if you use your email address for business, you most likely had to pay to have new stationary and business cards printed.

Did you know there is a cheap and easy way to have your very own permanent, personalized email address that “follows” you whenever you change ISP’s, jobs, etc? Let’s say your name is John Doe. How would you like to have an email address like john@johndoe.com? Well, you can, and it will cost you less than $10 a year! Here’s how:

1 – Visit www.Godaddy.com and register your own domain name. Just type your first and last name into the “Start a domain search” field without any spaces (i.e. johndoe). Unless you have a first/last name combination that is fairly common that domain should be available. If it is, simply click the link to register it and that domain will be yours as long as you want it for less than $10 a year! If your chosen domain has already been registered by someone else, try the .net or .org version.

2 – After you receive the email from Godaddy confirming that you have registered your domain, log into your new Godaddy account and click the link to set up an email address for your domain. It can be anything you want really, such as john@johndoe.com, sales@johndoe.com, fishinglures@johndoe.com… you get the picture.

3 – Set up your new email address in Windows Mail, Outlook Express, or whatever email client you use, and walla… you now have your very own personalized and permanent email address (as long as you continue to pay Godaddy the annual domain renewal fee).

You don’t have to use your real name in the domain name of course. For example, if you’re a real estate salesperson in Topeka you could register something like jane@topekahouses.com. When it comes right down to it you can register any domain name you wish as long as it isn’t already owned by someone else.

After you have registered your domain name and set up your personal email address, you’ll never have to change it again. Now if you change ISP’s or whatever, your email address will always remain the same!

By the way, although you now have your own domain name, you DO NOT have to have a website for that domain. But wouldn’t it be nice to have your own blog? Just something to think about…