How to create subdomains

Before you start throwing links in people’s faces I think it’s good idea to create subdomains for your most important links–social media accounts, events, rss feed, etc.

For example, it doesn’t look nice when you ask someone to become a fan of a nasty facebook url http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sonoma-Marketing/192424708434/ or to join an even nastier facebook group url http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13862132439.

It’s true that you could avoid this nastiness by creating a short link, but short links don’t have the same sense of permanency and authority that subdomains have and the potential ambiguity of short links make them look a little sketchy.  Short links can be created by going to bit.ly or j.mp and creating a short link http://j.mp/clfrQ1, custom short link http://j.mp/TheGlobalWineIndustryFBgroup, or by using the Pretty Link WordPress plugin to make http://theglobalwineindustry.com/FBgroup.

If you are not hosting your website (using tumblr) you can go to your domain manager (GoDaddy) and forward subdomains to key links:

If you are hosting your website (WordPress.org on MediaTemple.net) you can create a new folder in the same directory as your domain’s primary folder and do a 301 redirect in your .htaccess file:

Be careful not to create subdomains pointing to accounts, channels, galleries, sets, groups, and other places that you don’t use!