Own your name. If you visit cliftonsimmons.com, you won't find me. You'll find some doctor whose first name isn't even Clifton (it's his middle name - which drives me crazy). It's a harsh lesson I learned too late. At the risk of sounding like Marley from A Christmas Carol, it may not be too late for you.

If you buy anything for yourself this holiday, buy your domain name. And I mean your name. It's a good inexpensive investment. You can sit on it for now, but eventually you are going to have to create an online presence for yourself to promote your work.

I own CliftonSimmonsII.com (I have "the second" suffix to my full name) and CliftonSimmons.me. Right now there is nothing going on at either one. I'm saving them for when I become rich and famous. And if you share the name of someone famous, what you can do is make your domain identifiable to you, like halleberryartdirector.com or suffer through people stalking you and crazy accusations. Remember when another Justin Bieber was temporarily kicked off Facebook months ago?

When my name sites go up, I'm sure cliftonsimmons.com will still get a load of my traffic (and may be getting it now). You're probably about to check him out anyway. I'll save you some time. Click the link. Then see who may be you online.