Most search engine optimisation practitioners focus their attention on their websites’ keyword optimization, backlinks, and content creation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s also an important factor that can easily get overlooked: the domain name. It’s not that domain names are going to be the biggest factor in search engine optimisation. I’m not going to undermine the importance of building backlinks, and creation of keyword-rich content – but choosing the right domain name is going to help you greatly in your search engine optimisation efforts. Domain names are pretty important – if you take some time to check the prices of generic domain names, you’d be surprised to see that some domain names have prices going up to the millions of dollars. If you get a generic domain name and fill it with great and relevant content and of course build up the site with search engine optimisation, that site’s going to be big. Local domains, in particular, are going to make a difference. A ccTLDs, or country code top-level domain, is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country. Instead of using the usual domain name extensions like .com, .net, .org, .biz, and . info – ccTLDs are unique to a country, like .de for Germany, .us for the USA, and .hk for Hong Kong. ccTLDs are very handy for SEO because search engines are quickly moving towards localized search results. Search engines base their results on these factors:
- The GeoIP location of the search engine user
- The GeoIP location of the server your website
- Your website’s ccTLD
Imagine if you had to get webhosting in every country you have to do a localized SEO campaign – that’s a bit expensive and practically impossible. Buying the ccTLD for a campaign for a website targeted for, let’s say, Filipinos would do better in SERPs. Buying the ccTLD will be great for localized campaigns, but remember that a great domain name should not be the end of your SEO efforts. Getting a great domain will remove a lot of work out of your hands though.
Originally posted on August 2, 2010 @ 8:34 am
