Ease of use is what all customers look for in a business when browsing the web. If a page is too cluttered, messy, or even overloaded with features or products, it may deter some people from supporting that business. This is a struggle for every business owner; finding a happy medium between minimalistic and maximizing your website and promoting sales / services.
Geolocation, whether it’s through ccTLDs or through geolocation apps for your website, is a great way to manage your business and make it not only more accessible, but much cleaner for your consumer’s eyes. Today, we’ll cover the reasons why you should be looking into country-exclusivity variants for your website.
What is a ccTLD?
To put it simply, a ccTLD is a country-code top level domain. At the end of some website URLs, you’ll see specific domain extensions such as .de and .cn. This is a way to help search engines, as well as customers to understand that that specific domain for your store is intended for a specific country. Alternatively, there's domains that won’t affect local SEO, which are called gTLDs (general top level domains).
ccTLD's are always a useful investment, but primarily aimed at larger businesses due to the time and money required.
What benefits will my business have using a ccTLD?
By including country-specific rules for your business, one thing you can optimize is SEO. With ccTLD’s, Google will view this as an indicator that your business is intended for a specific country, and you’ll rank higher in that country; limiting diversity also increases local business. By having many ccTLD’s, you can maximize SEO for a variety of countries, and with enough work, you will be raking in much more traffic than you initially thought possible.
In addition to this, having multiple ccTLD’s also allows you the ability to customize each one; this is especially useful if you’re selling to different lingual countries, or have products and warehouses exclusive to those countries. Giving each location and visitor a truly unique experience.
Is there a cheaper option?
Admittedly, having multiple ccTLD’s is not only expensive, but can be time-consuming. Luckily, we live in the era of technology, and many resources and services are being created everyday to make things a lot more convenient for you. While it may not be as optimal in regards to SEO, there are apps out there for CMS platforms, and even developers that can create apps for you to simulate this same experience through geolocation.
Even if you’re a smaller business that has only one gTLD, such as .com, you can still benefit from country-exclusivity. One example of this is our app, Advanced Store Localization for Shopify. The app allows you to hide products depending on the IP of visitors, and it’s a very cheap alternative to buying and managing many separate ccTLD’s.
So you may be asking yourself, would one gTLD be better for your business, or multiple ccTLD’s? Unfortunately, that answer will change a lot depending on your business size, your products, as well as your reach, globally. Make sure to do some research and find the option that will be best for you and your business.
Would a custom TLD be beneficial for my business?
You need to take into consideration the sheer amount of .com domains out there, and you may be worried about getting lost in the fray. In reality, however, .com is a much more reliable TLD than something such as .info or .site. The .com extension is globally seen as reliable, and is a good default to take - you won’t take a traffic hit from using a general and trusted TLD such as this.
While it may not affect SEO, it is proven that users generally trust .com TLDs more than the alternatives. Sometimes being unique can be good, but not in every instance. Make sure to do your research before deciding on anything, however, because in some cases, it can compliment your brand.
Conclusion
When it comes to SEO and branding your business, there are always so many things to consider. Geolocation, ccTLD’s, and even the TLD you choose, can all play a major role in how successful your business can become. No single thing should be overlooked, which is why we’ll be covering every aspect of businesses and how to expand, succeed, and take advantage of what services you have at your disposal.
Check in often for updates to our blog, as well as consider reaching out to us if you need any services.
