I’m not sure what the purpose of this post from PPC Blog was supposed to be, but I’m sure I don’t agree with the title. I don’t think you necessarily need the .com TLD for your domain name. It’s nice if you can get it, but you can build a solid business without it.
The following comment, though, near the bottom of the blog is definitely not correct:
Getting all relevant TLD’s for each country in my opinion can still be the safest way to go.
You have to look at your business model and decide what you want to do. If you are only interested in building a local business around your niche then it doesn’t matter what other TLDs are available. The TLD in fact doesn’t make a difference at all. What matters is how well you market the TLD that you have.
Granted, if you are a global business and you want to dominate your niche then you could buy up all the TLDs in every country in which you wish to operate, but that could get expensive. What will you do with them? Redirect them to your primary TLD or build separate websites for them all? Obviously, if your aim is to dominate then you’ll want to build separate websites. Again, that could get expensive.
You have to be realistic about your goals. If your primary method of driving traffic to your website is with PPC then your TLD is a non-issue. Even if you plan to build your business around solid SEM then the TLD is not really important. When it does become important is when you plan to build a strong offline brand and you want your customers to remember your domain name. They are more apt to remember .com. But for search and PPC traffic, you are driving the traffic to you, not expecting them to find you own their own. There is a difference and you should keep that in mind.
Hey Brick Marketing,
Thanks for your thoughts. I didn’t mean it as literally as it came out, you are correct when you say you can build a solid business on a .net, a .org or a geo location tld.
It was more from a branding perspective and blocking out any competition (with regards to Aarons ppcblog.com version).
From an SEO standpoint for large enterprises, going the multiple TLD route is the safest way to go if you want to rank in multiple regions.
You can host/get an ip from the target location going a subdomain route, you can tick that box in Webmaster Central for the sub directory and sub domain route but this won’t guarantee you will rank in that location. Check out the link from my post to Dave N’s blog as an example with a .com in the UK with a UK IP/hosting.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers.
PPCblogger
Yes the TLD matters, but it is not significant to the extent that we can’t survive without it. Even the sites having .com domain are ranking very fast in Australia, Japan & China as well. (Blogger.com is a good example), Anyways , you wrote a good stuff and I appreciate it, So plz keep it up!!!