There was once a time when things were quite straight forward – and simpler – when it came to choosing your top level domain (TLD) name. If you had a business website you would invariably search for a fitting one that ended with .com. An educational institution would go for an .edu TLD name and an organization would opt for .org.
And then, relatively recently (starting from late in 2013), things got a whole lot more complicated. New TLDs, reflecting everything from services (.repair, .pizza, .photography, etc.) to specific professions (.lawyer, .dentist, .actor, etc.), were made available to the public and a new rush to purchase these domain names began.
Some well-established businesses made sure they either bought all relevant new TLDs or dumped their older, generic TLDs outright and hosted their sites with the new names.
So, the question now becomes what advantages, if any, do the new TLDs bring with them and should you ditch your old generic one for the new specific one(s)?
Well, here are some answers:
You Stand Out… For Now, At Least
Buying your new TLD name makes you stand out in world that is still inundated with .com websites. The novelty of seeing a website with a full, descriptive word at the end of a domain name will make it easily noticeable.
Investing in the new TLDs right now would be wise before your competitors jump in on the buying spree and your site disappears into the oblivion that is sure to come.
You Attract Curious Traffic
Curiosity is a powerful motivator when it comes to driving traffic to a website (if you don’t believe it to be so, just ask SEO experts about “click-baiting”). People who see that your domain name ends with a .lol will certainly want to know what the joke is all about while those seeing one that ends with a .cheap will be curious about whether they can get their hands on goods and services at a lower price.
Take the time to choose a TLD that rouses the curiosity of visitors and combine it with an intelligent phrase to come up with an irresistible full domain name.
It Helps With Memory
An attorney in El Segundo, California could have a website with an elsegundoattorney.com. Yes, it does look like a neat domain name that would leave no doubt in the minds of people looking at it regarding what they could expect by heading to the site.
But, an even neater domain name would be elsegundo.attorney – it is even more legible, has a more “oomph” value behind it and is quite easy to remember.
If your profession is listed among the new TLDs, it would be wise to grab one and combine it with your unique brand or identity before it’s too late.
Protect Yourself against Squatters
Early in the days of the internet, and ever since, the problem of people buying up domain names of established businesses, celebrity names and those with similar names was a real problem. These people (known as squatters) would buy these name for the sole purpose of selling them back to the genuine businesses and persons for a profit.
If you have a business that has an already established brand name (or even if you are still working towards becoming an established brand) you should think ahead and purchase domain names that you think would be relevant to you and take control of them.
It Helps With SEO Ranking – Indirectly
Right from the onset, Google Inc. made it clear that the new TLDs wouldn’t have much effect on the SEO of a website and its ranking in its search engine result pages (SERPS).
According to Matt Cutts, Head of Webspam at Google, “Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that’s your choice, but you shouldn’t register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you’ll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.”
But consider this fact: the new TLDs will have an increased rate of click-throughs from SERPs even if they are not at the top of the results lists. This is mainly due to a combination of factors that include their being short, precise and that they appear to be more appealing to visitors.
Google has been on a crusade that it has dubbed “Relevance”, implying that it is a website’s relevance with regards to meeting visitors’ queries and demands that matter the most when it comes to rankings. That is measured, among many other factors, by the number of people that visit a site.
If sites with the new TLDs attract a healthy amount of traffic, Google will definitely want to be a part of the phenomenon.
Ruth Stubbs, president of iProspect and Digital Media Asia Pacific, says, “Google’s organic search results have a strong bias towards domain names, I believe. Therefore, if you can afford it, it’s an easy way to get yourself above the noise, particularly if your brand happens to be a competitive keyword.”
So, let us just leave you with some strong advice: if you can, it would make good sense to invest in as many of the new TLDs that are relevant to your business website as possible.
