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 India is performing
a search for widgets, a search engine will often rank widgets.co.in
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.
Author is the ceo of http://www.silicasys.com
|
