4 Reasons Why Your Business Needs to be on a New Domain Extension
Can your business website have an impact on your business positioning, branding and marketing? Yes, absolutely!
It has happened with you, as it has happened with most of us, that there is that perfect brand name in your mind for your business but when you search for it to register a website, you get the message, ‘That domain name has already been taken!’ It can be quite disappointing and as a result, you’d have to settle for domain names with hyphens, too many characters or numbers, wrong spellings, meaningless word fillers, etc.
The problems with choosing a long and complicated domain name are:
- Your website name will become your identity and address on the Internet. You want it to look promising and polished
- You need the website name to be memorable and easy to find
- Your website address should be an extension of your brand positioning
- Your customers should be able to understand your website name clearly
- In the long run, you’d prefer to have a domain name that is keyword rich
The good news is that you don’t need to choose a complicated domain name for your brand. You have a simplified solution because of the availability of 1200+ new domain extensions such as:
.TECH, .ONLINE, .STORE, .SITE, .WEBSITE, .FUN, .HOST, and .SPACE.
Thus, instead of settling for a mediocre name, you can utilise the massive opportunity and be disruptive with your branding and positioning right from the start.
Let’s say you have a ‘food tech’ business in Portugal. Wouldn’t it be great if you get the exact match domain name in the localised language? So, going with the Portuguese word ‘comida’ for ‘food’ and combining it with a new domain extensions, such as .TECH, a food app business got ‘www.comida.tech’ — a one word, meaningful domain name that describes who you are.
What are new domain extensions?
Some of the most popular domain extensions are .COM, .ORG, .GOV, .EDU. Technically, all of these extensions are similar but each of them mean something different linguistically. So, .COM means ‘commercial’, .ORG means ‘organization’, and so on. Since 2012, many new domain extensions have been introduced and today we have over 1200 of them. So, you can be sure that there’s one that’s most relevant for your industry. Some of these extensions include .TECH (technology, startups), .STORE (eCommerce), .FUN (media and entertainment), .PRESS (news), .SPACE (outer space), .HOST (Internet hosting), etc.
The most obvious benefit of these domain extensions is that they add a layer of meaning to your website and brand positioning. Some of the most popular brands use new domain extensions to brand their specific initiatives. For instance, Cisco has pirl.tech for its innovation and research lab and Google My Business uses BUSINESSNAME.busines.site as a subdomain for all the small businesses that are registered on it.
What are the key benefits of new domain extensions?
- Availability
New domain extensions open up a massive opportunity for businesses to select domain names that they truly like. For example, Intel chose www.insight.tech for its tech resource portal and an African startup chose www.directpay.online for its digital payments business. With new domain extensions, it’s possible to find the exact match domain name.
2. Creativity
New domain extensions offer a creative approach to selecting domain names. By using them as meaningful keywords, you can choose a website name that is memorable and creates an impression. For example, a business that lets people from non-tech background ‘break into tech’ uses the website www.breakinto.tech and a startup that makes travel-planning easy is called www.anycity.online. Thus, with new domain extensions, you can put your imagination to work to find a creative domain name that stands out.
3. Niche Targeting
A larger benefit of new domain extensions is that they make the Internet namespace more organized and business friendly. By only using your website name, you can help attract an audience that is most relevant to you. For example, Edward Snowden’s Freedom of the Press Foundation uses the website www.freedom.press. The website name by itself is a message to the entire press community and thus resonates with them immediately. Just by looking at the name, one can identify if the website is for them or not. It’s also a great way to segregate the same brand across multiple target groups. Therefore, while Viacom’s primary website is www.viacom.com, it’s tech focused portal is www.viacom.tech.
4. Positioning
Imagine if you were to launch a new SUV in the market and wanted to position it as a ‘fun’ car. Wouldn’t it be useful to have its website on a .FUN domain? That way, the target group would see carname.fun in all marketing and promotions. Over time, the word ‘fun’ would become a part of the car name itself. Thus, domain names can be used very effectively for branding and can prove to be one of the most successful positioning tools for your business.
Bonus 5th reason: Websites on new domain extensions are more memorable because they are meaningful. Let’s say you meet a woman named Martha who tells you that she is a chef in New York. It’s likely that you will remember what she does but may easily forget her name. That’s because the name itself does not communicate a story about the person. The same goes for domain names. A website name that is meaningful, short and creative can communicate a lot more than a website name that seems like any other name.
So, get innovative and play around with your business name and new domain extensions to find a website name that will be a game changer for your brand!
A Portuguese version of this post was originally published on Redehost’s blog.
