brand, domain-nameI’ve noticed many tech startups using the .io domain. Many more TLDs will be available in the next few years. Using a less popular domain gives you more freedom to choose your name, but does it make it harder to find your site? If so, how can one minimize the negative impact of using one of these domains?
As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, the vast majority of internet users automatically think .com even if they should know it’s .net .org or .vegas
This has gotten better as more TLDs have become common in recent years. Aside from tech startups using them, I think people seeing t.co fb.me and goo.gl (not to mention bit.ly and others) links showing up in the social media feeds is going a long way towards getting people used to the idea that it isn’t always .com
That said, I think we have a little while to go still before typing in a url like: www.spinozis.pizza will feel natural.
It’s impossible to say how long it will take before these new TLDs (or the older but less common ones) become more common place. Part of that will depend on how many larger companies are willing to take the risk of jumping on board with the new opportunity.
Luckily, a tech startup has a larger portion of their userbase that is more likely to be familiar with the new TLDs than Spinozi’s Pizzeria is likely to. So do you risk alienating those that aren’t “in the know” to get a cooler domain name?
The answer to that question is one you’d have to weigh case by case. Just how cool is the name? Is it catchy enough that it will make the TLD more memorable too? How lame is the alternative .com domain name that you’re considering? How important is it to your brand to have a catchy domain name?
If possible, I would say the best case scenario for now, if you want to use a new TLD, would be if you can work it out to get the catchy TLD domain and the corresponding .com domain.
Examples that come to mind are bit.ly (who also use bitly.com) and delicio.us (delicious.com as well). Neither of those are actually “new” TLDs, but the new ones haven’t been out long enough to have many (any?) really established new brands using them (and many of them aren’t even released for registration yet).
As things move forward with more and more of these being used, I don’t think it will take too long before people become fairly comfortable with them. And the more comfortable people become, the less it will matter what TLD you use for your domain.
Something else to consider is how people are going to interact with your site.
If it’s something they stumble into from a search engine or a link on another site and only visit it once to download something or install an app or whatever, then the domain isn’t as critical for them to remember exactly how to type it in (unless they need to tell their friend how to get their). But if you want them to come back and visit frequently, it needs to either be really catchy or .com (or both obviously).
Another detail that makes it matter less is that many people have a habit of typing things in the search bar instead of the address bar even if they know the url. I’ve even seen people type “google.com” in the Bing or Yahoo search bar in their browser.
If they do that, and your SEO is up to par, they shouldn’t have trouble finding you even if you’re using an off the wall TLD.
Between those people, and the people that are already knowledgable about the TLDs, a large portion of your user base may already be able to find you with a new TLD - it’s just a matter of determining if it will effect the rest of your potential user base and if so is the fancy domain worth the risk?
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