Advantages
of domain name with a country specific tld
Advantages of domain name with a country specific tld
Most new websites tend to look for a domain name with a .com or
.net tld (Top Level Domain). They feel this gives the site a more
professional appearance and will appeal to a more international
audience and in many cases this is true. However, it can also be
beneficial to look at purchasing a domain name with a country specific
tld.
There are a number of benefits that can be gained from choosing
a domain name with a country specific tld, especially if you conduct
your business primarily in one particular country.
Search Engine Benefits
Most of the large search engines will give you a higher search
ranking for a site that has the tld of the searchers country. For
example, if someone from the United Kingdom is performing a search
for widgets, a search engine will often rank widgets.co.uk higher
than other sites selling the same product but only have a .com tld.
Having a country specific tld will also allow you to be included
in a lot of great country directories that stipulate that your domain
name has a certain tld. Getting your site into these directories
can be a great way of improving your search engine ranking as these
are 1 way links from authority sites for your chosen subject. These
kind of links are graded much higher than reciprocal linking.
Buyer Confidence
Having a domain tld will often give the buyer more confidence when
making a purchase as they consider the site to be local, therefore
governed under the same laws as the buyer. This makes it easier
to follow up and sales and make complaints if any problems occur
during the purchase of the product. It also helps to settle any
nerves if the buyer is able to see a street address that they recognize,
rather than a foreign address.
Sometimes the best policy is to purchase both a .com and a country
tld. This allows you to appeal to both international and national
customers. The potential sales that you can get with a country domain
tld should not be overlooked as a small investment in an extra domain
can bring big returns for you and your business.
Gather information about your customer before they start
browsing
Another benefit of having a country domain name is that you already
know where your customer is likely to be from. This means that you
can display products for that particular customers region without
having to ask the customer to select which geographic area they
are in.
When a customer types in their country domain, you can forward
them to your main domain name but display only products that will
be of interest to them and have all the prices in their own currency.
This gives the site a local feel and will again bring that buying
confidence that is so important when trying to make a sale.
Summary
I hope you've seen the importance of not overlooking this great
opportunity to bring in extra customers, simply by choosing a country
domain name or simply adding as an extra name that points to your
main domain name.
About the Author Steve Ashton is a programmer
and web developer. He runs two popular websites, Web Hosting Guide
and Domain Names Center.
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