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.
1. Buy only “.com” and don’t trouble yourself with the others. Although the domain name players have gone to some trouble to publicize and market to us about the availability of other extensions such as .org, .net, .us and others…there is still no real reason to buy anything but “.com.”
If you currently have a domain name that is not a “.com,” I strongly suggest you obtain it. Or, if that’s not possible, consider finding a new domain name.
The rationale is simple: if the point of having a website is to get people to visit it, the best rule of thumb is to make it easy to remember. If your customers have to think in order to get to your website, and maybe even have to type in a wrong domain first before they finally reach you…you want to change that so they don’t.
2. Buy your own personal name. What better way to make it easy for your customers to find you? As you become better known online, and as you build your customer database, it will become increasingly important for your customers to be able to find you based on your personal name.
Buying your personal name allows you to build credibility for your brand identity and makes it easy to “Google” you. Ever tried typing in just your first and last names at Google? Try it and see what happens. If you aren’t showing up in the results, you will want to work on this. And buying your own personal name as a domain name is a simple and very effective way to get going.
3. Buy the most common spelling mistakes for your domain. Even if you follow the advice in (2) above, it may be inevitable that some of your visitors will misspell your domain. It’s human error.
So although these may not be obvious to you at first, it’s worthwhile putting your antennae up in order to figure it out. The first hint? If you misspell your own domain name, chances are others will. Be sure to grab the most common ones.
Example: www.Google.com, www.Gogle.com and www.Gooogle.com all go to the same page. Why? Google “gets” that lots of people type in too few or too many “Os” and has set it up so everyone gets to the right place.
4. Double check your domain names for odd or unintentional meanings. This one is a bit mixed, because if your domain name turns out to be something quite funny, it might be just that much more memorable and bring you free traffic. But you may not want to be remembered in that way, and the traffic that results could be a detriment to you. (The wrong target market just clogs up your system, uses bandwidth, and creates customer service inquiries you don’t want.)
So do a double check to see if your domain says something you didn’t expect.
What do I mean?
www.newsextracts.com is actually a clipping service, but could be interpreted to be something rather more racy.
www.whorepresents.com is actually a site where you can find a given actor’s agent or manager, but can be interpreted to be something else.
Last but not least, as with everything online, ebusiness owners have the luxury of easily and quickly asking our customers most anything, including “What do you think is the best domain name for this project?”
So when in doubt, ask your customers what they think. Give them a choice of a few domains you’ve narrowed it down to, and offer a prize of some sort to encourage participation. It works, and you’ll end up avoiding potholes along the way.
]]>Then, they followed the fate of MaBell. Government stepped in and allowed competitors in the Domain Registration business.
If you feel more secure sticking with a name-brand with a long track record, register your domain name with them. However, do check their prices…still higher than their competitors who offer identical and sometimes superior service – ( http://www.nic.net/pricing.html ) – Domain Name Registration Pricing. Deregulation forced them to be more competitive. But they charge more…relying upon their “brand name.”
We moved our three sites over to Terrasite…about half the price we were paying…and no charge for selling off one of our sites. Hooray! for competition! And a level playing-field!
More Domain Register companies have since set up shop in CyberSpace. Some are very good. Others are very questionable.
After beginning our quest for our ***perfect CyberSpace profession where we could do nothing! and make a whole lot of money! in a month! and be set for the rest of our lives***, we registered 2 more domain names.
We approached Terrasite. Did they have an affiliate program where we would make money every time somebody registered through us? Or when we registered more sites? No response after several tries. We guess they found their niche market and their ***perfect CyberSpace profession where they do nothing! and make a whole lot of money! every day! and are set for the rest of their life.***
So…we registered these through one of the I-Marketing gurus we like. Better through him than with a faceless big operation which doesn’t answer emails.
We pursued our learning curve over the months. Not guru-material yet…but we can dream. Isn’t that what makes life interesting?…pursuing a good dream? So…we plan to register many more domain names…all will help us expand our business(es). We want a reasonably priced credible service…and not consumer-challenged.
We searched in Google. We searched Whois. Note: We like using – ( http://www.whois.sc/ ) – Whois Source: Domain name search lookup that allows a wildcard search of all current/deleted/expired whois domains. It is EZ to use and results are good.
We are trying out what we feel may be the right one for us – Domain Direct – ( http://www.EarnYourLiving.com/DomainDirectRegistration/ ) – The Easiest way to Register, Build & Host your Website!
Why do we feel good about them? They are affiliated with Tucows. Tucows are good people and have been around for many years. We used to visit them for a lot of free downloads – back in the days of DOS 5.0. There were similar operations out there, but Tucows always had it together and was consumer-friendly.
Also, they register your domain name with ICANN. Find out more about the importance of ICANN – ( http://www.icann.org/ ) – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This is the Master Registry of all domain names – somebody has to do this in order to keep order.
Terrasite gave us no problems transferring our Registration over to DomainDirect. We are conservative. We left our other two domains with Terrasite – let’s see how DomainDirect works out. These two don’t need to be renewed until 2004…we have time.
When we tried to move one of the two we had registered through the “guru”…we had to threaten the service we would report them to their state’s Attorney General. We copied everything to the guru…who may have marketed the wrong service…honest mistake. They finally let it move over to Domain Direct. Hey…it’s *our* property, it’s *our* money…it’s *our* choice of where we do business.
NOTE: When you change registrars – begin 2 months before your expiration date. That gives you time for “screw-ups” along the way. Basically, if you are paid up and request your move outside of 30 days…there should be no problem. If you move at the last minute, some registrars will charge you another year as a penalty. Also…when you move to another Registrar, you don’t lose money – your original date of registration gets credited over. So…you pay for a year. Your date of renewal is at the end of that year plus the remaining time you have left.
The “guru’s” registrar offered renewal for half their fee if we stayed with them. Our experience with them dictates we walk away and never look back. We voted…with our feet and our wallet. There should be no problems when we move our other site…
We feel good about DomainDirect. We have an affiliate relationship. Yes…we get a little commission every time we register another domain name. And…every time somebody registers through our affiliate link. DomainDirect pays affiliates when $100 in commissions is accumulated. This equates to every time 8 new domains come through us, we get $100. Ain’t much…but it helps lower the cost per each domain name we register for ourselves. If you plan to register 8 or more domain names…it is worth your while to become their affiliate.
]]>If you see two URLs like below-
http://www.bubblesnbath.com/
http://www.hypermart.com/users/bubblesnbath/index.htm
Which one you are more inclined to click on?
Certainly the first one.
Is is not what you sell. When you start. Where your business was focused. You need your own domain name.
***What is a domain name?
Domain name is your website’s address. In other words as we can not remember the IP numbers as good as computers, we designed the domain name system. This is to remember the website addresses. We can remember domainname.com easily but not 123.12.123.12.
***How much it costs?
Now the domain registration fee is touching the bottom line. It won’t cost you no more than $10 to register a domain for 1 year.
http://www.1afm.com/domain-names/ :$8.95 per year
http://www.dnbuy.com/ :$8.97 per year
http://www.namepile.com/ :$9.95 per year
http://registerfly.com/ :$9.99 per year
***Why you need your own domain?
1. Your own domain gives your business credibility. People see you as a reliable person.
They will know that you are doing business seriously. And your own domain gives you a professional credit. More likely you are going to make sales with your own domain rather than free hosting names.
2. It will be simple to remember the first URL (http://www.bubblesnbath.com/) in the above example than the second one (http://www.hypermart.com/users/bubblesnbath/index.htm).
3. You can brand yourself and your business in peoples eyes.
4. You can get a specific email address that belongs
to you and your domain. Not like you@yahoo.com or you@hotmail.com.
5. Suppose you have a website like-
http://www.freespaceproviders.com/users/bubblesnbath/index.htm
You spend all your time to promote this URL and to sell your products. If suddenly your free hosting provider will tell you that they are closing free accounts. Or you are facing problems with running your free site.
If you change your servers now, all the time you spent to promote the above URL will become waste. You have to start over again. You will lose traffic.
But with your own domain, when ever you change the hosts, the URL will be the same and you don’t lose traffic when you change your hosts.
6. It was said that search engines give less preference to free server names and they don’t crawl beyond index page. (This was the discussion I read in the Google public forums)
]]>The answer to these questions is a bit of a mystery, but I will try and shed light on them. Firstly, some of the new tld’s might very well gain popularity. Possible ones such as “.shop” could give consumers more comfort in doing browser type-ins to find what they are looking for since the new tlds will be much more targeted than current ones.
One way to manipulate the new tld’s would be to gain residual traffic to an already established site. Using “.shop” as an example you might register “yourproduct.shop” to redirect visitors to your already established “yourproduct.com”.
As for starting your internet presence from scratch using one of the new tld’s, I don’t recommend it. There will be companies though that will heavily try and brand a site using this method. I can already imagine commercials with sales pitches such as “a different web address for a different kind of company”. To establish a site like that will take some big bucks for advertising. This is the main weakness I see.
All major companies already have their dot com’s somewhat established. Why would big names such as Amazon, Yahoo, Etrade, Monster, etc, care about new, untested tld’s when they have already spent many millions in branding their sites on the most popular tld, dot com. They wouldn’t. These new domains might only be worth registering/developing once a company with some very serious money starts heavily branding the extension into the average surfers mind.
Slightly off topic but important, is that some of the new tld’s worth will try and be inflated by the registry owners. That’s perfectly understandable. They want you to see their tld as very valuable and get you to register as many as possible. I believe a similar strategy went into the sale of Beauty.cc which was sold for 1 million dollars on greatdomains.com. I don’t know all the details but remember hearing it was kind of a publicity scam where the buyer was one of the registry owners or something. As more and more tld’s come out there will be increased tactics of this nature going on. Be smart, and if something seems too good to be true, it is.
As for the question of whether the new tld’s will dilute the value of dot com’s, I don’t see it happening at all. Billions of dollars have been spent putting .com addresses in front of consumers eyes the last 5 years. Dot com’s are what people know and are comfortable with. They aren’t going anywhere. They are the prime cyber real estate and their value will not be affected. Prime real estate just doesn’t go down in value.
The bottom line is that some of the new tld’s may eventually have value and with low registration costs it is more than worth the risk to register some with high type in potential. This is the best strategy for domain buyers and can be summed up as, “Don’t go all out with new tld’s, but don’t be left in the cold either”.
With all the new tld’s that will be probably be available in the next few years it will make the domain scene a bit more interesting, and if you play it right, you could have a new source of type in traffic to supplement your already established and valuable dot com collection.
]]>They aren’t free but if your serious about building your own corporate or on line presence the a domain name is one of the best investments you can make.
The Domain Name System or DNS allows for computers to translate a series of numerical numbers in human friendly names. Names are easy to remember and therefore help to locate your website.
A domain name is part of the address of a website and is known by the technical term URL or Uniform Resource Locator.
Domain names are limited by international conventions and can not exceed 63 characters, certain characters are also not allowed.
What are the steps to register a domain name?
First – Select your domain name, ideally this needs to be either your company or websites name.
Secondly – Check if its free. Most domain name registrars including www.discountdomainsuk.com offer a WHOIS service. Consider registering the other Top Level Domain extensions, e.g .com and .co.uk if your UK based.
Thirdly – Register your domain name. As you register your domain name or names it is always worth giving thought to where your website will be hosted, some registrars and hosting companies expect you to purchase both services. It can be more expensive to change your mind later on.
Lastly maintain your domain name. If you change your e-mail address etc, do not forget to update your account with the registrar, otherwise when renewal comes around you could overlook your domain names expiry.
]]>You can basically do so through:
Add-On Domains
Parked Domains, and
Sub-Domains
What is an Add-On Domain?
An add-on domain is a new domain name that points to a subdirectory within your existing domain hosting account, where the website for the new domain will reside. Add-on domains must be registered domain names that you own, and that are configured to point to your web host’s servers.
From a web user perspective, an add-on domain functions just like any other domain. For example, if you already have a hosting account under www.main-domain.com, you can register and set up an add-on domain (for example: www.add-on-domain.com), so that when your visitors type “http://www.add-on-domain.com” in their browser, they will be transported to the new site.
The advantage of add-on domains is that the browser’s address bar will show “http://www.add-on-domain.com” (there will be no reference to the original domain), so the process will be totally transparent to your users. If your users navigates to another page, their browser will accordingly show “http://www.add-on-domain.com/anotherpage.html”, just like it should.
Apart from sharing web space and bandwidth with your main domain, add-on domains also get their own cgi-bin and statistics.
Many web hosts now offer to set-up add-on domains for free. This is only fair, since you are not getting any more web space or bandwidth. Others, however, will charge you a modest one time fee, which is not bad, especially when the cost of registering the new domain is included. Finally, some web hosts will charge you a montly fee for each add-on domain you set up. In some cases, that fee can be very close to the monthly cost of your web hosting account, to the point that it is better to just open a new hosting account for the new domain. If you plan to set up add-on domains in the future, you’re better off avoiding this kind of account.
What is a Parked Domain?
A parked domain is a domain that doesn’t have a hosting account associated to it, and that is usually enabled with URL forwarding capabilities, so that it points to an existing website. For example, let’s assume that you already run a newsletter that is hosted in a subdirectory of your domain name, as follows: “http://www.domain.com/newsletter/index.html”. You may at one given point want to register a separate domain name for your newsletter, so that it is more memorable, but may not want to move its pages to a new server, open a new hosting account, or pay to establish an add-on domain. You can then register a and park a new domain for your newsletter (for example: “http://www.newsletter.com”), which will be forwarded to “http://www.domain.com/newsletter/index.html”.
You don’t need to register this new domain with the same company that hosts your website. You can register it with any domain registrar (preferrably one that offers free URL forwarding) and point it to the physical location of the pages.
The difference between a parked domain and an add-on domain from a web user’s perspective is that with a parked domain the URL in the address bar will change to the physical location of the page as the page loads. For example, if you type “http://www.newsletter.com”, that domain won’t remain in the browser address bar, but will change to “http://www.domain.com/newsletter/index.html” as soon as the page is displayed.
From a webmaster’s perspective, the difference is that the parked domain won’t have its own separate statistics reported through the control panel of your hosting account.
If you are a good observer, you may have probably noticed that my newsletter domain “http://www.theinternetdigest.net” is parked and points to the physical location of my newsletter pages, which is “http://www.accordmarketing.com/tid/”.
Parked domains are also a good alternative for webmasters whose site is hosted by a free hosting service, since by using a memorable parked domain users won’t need to remember the cumbersome web addresses usually associated with free hosting accounts.
They are also widely used by members of affiliate programs, who forward the parked domain to the merchant pages, so that they don’t have to use an affiliate URL that includes their affiliate id (which turns many people off).
What is a Sub-Domain?
A subdomain, also known as a “third-level” domain, is a great way to create memorable web addresses for various sub-sites of your site. For instance, Yahoo! uses subdomains for its different services, like “mail.yahoo.com”, “music.yahoo.com”, etc. The basic syntax is: “http://subdomain.domain.com”.
Large businesses use subdomains to establish branding and focus on separate products or services, because a subdomain creates a separate URL and web presence, all within your same main hosting account. For example, a restaurant directory may establish sub-domains for different cities, or a school can set up subdomains for different academic programs.
It is also possible to redirect (forward) traffic from a particular subdomain to another location, either within the main site or to a different website altogether.
You should be able to set up and manage add-on domains, parked domains and subdirectories from your hosting account or domain registrar control panel. However, as we usually suggest, always consult with your web host before proceeding if you have any doubts.
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