Domain name strategies

We can also expect city specific extensions, such as .nyc for New York City, .london and .berlin.

It will be very interesting to see if they are rolled out as it could affect the search results and mean that many will turn to local and city optimisation. Technically, localised domain extensions such as .co.uk, .ca and .in should rank better than .com for local searches, so these new domain extensions offer new opportunities for online businesses to boost their visibility in the search engine results pages.

• They are seen as conveying the identity of a company on the internet
• They are used to publish information on the internet via websites, or to send e-mails
• Your site may get higher rankings within the search engines for the specific keywords you have used
• When people see your domain name they will have a quick understanding of what it is your site is related to (most of the time).

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There is currently an estimated 1.6 billion internet users worldwide which is constantly increasing, having the right domain strategy can enable companies to extend the reach of their marketing campaigns leading to high traffic volumes and an increase in sales conversions for their brands.

Having a domain name strategy that works well for you or company can lead to many benefits such as high increases in site traffic and sales.

ICANN are close to finalising its new gTLD proposal, some of the domains that we can expect to see this year include:

Choosing the right domain

When deciding on the right domain name this can often be a challenge; it is not necessarily thinking of the name, it is often trying to find a good one that is not already taken. Some top tips to consider when looking for the right domain name include:

• Think which generic domains will best promote your brand and establish your company as a leader in your industry
• Look for a keyword rich domain over a domain that has no relevancy to the company or website
• Go for a domain extension that is relevant to the country you are targeting. There is no point buying an .ie domain when you only wish to target the UK market
• Make the domain name memorable. Snappy and catchy is the trick. Visitors are more likely to remember a catchy name

• Don’t use weird spellings unless this reflects a brand.

As we are all aware, domain names play a pivotal role and can have a major affect on your website / company. Some of the reasons for this include:

It’s also a well-known fact in the SEO world that Google shows huge favouritism in its rankings to domain names that contain one or more of the keywords being searched for. If your domain name is a close or exact match to the search keyword then the chances of the site ranking for this is very high. Google seems to deliberately favour this kind of match.

We believe that these domain opportunities should be taken very seriously and utilised to their full capacity. If an opportunity arises like this it would be beneficial to your business to assess whether local listings should be the basis of your company or whether they would be a waste of time.

Authors: Ken Berkley, Rob Bromilow and Julie Cheung.

The highly contested .xxx is expected to be approved – but contested as many think it will push the adult industry underground, although I think this is highly unlikely however.

From the blog post, I hope it has given you a brief insight into the importance of domain name strategies and the advantages they can have on your company / website if carried out correctly. This new way of creating a domain gives us vast amounts of options and opportunities to take advantage of. Depending on the size of your business and the competition in the market, it will have to be a decision based strategically on whether you want local listings, national or global. These extra domain extensions open up the possibility of increasing your local rankings drastically.

Conclusion

New domain extensions for 2010

In today’s blog post we are going to be discussing domain name strategies and the importance they can have on a company and in terms of search engine optimisation.

What are the advantages of a domain name strategy?