Saturday, July 05, 2008

A domain name you can trust

Trust is an increasingly important issue on the internet and one of the trust factors for users is the domain name of the website they are visiting. Internet users choose local domain names over .com addresses.

A survey of British Internet users showed they are six times more likely to choose a .uk rather than .com address when looking for information via an Internet search engine. 62% believe a .uk address suggests a company is local or more relevant than a .com, and 32% believe that it is important for international companies to have local domain names in order to attract local customers. 72% said they would visit a .uk web address above any other and only 5% of respondents would try the .com.

How does this translate for New Zealand companies?
Well if you are doing business in NZ than you will be more successful within the NZ market with a .nz domain name. New Zealand internet users experience a higher degree of trust when they are on a local - .co.nz, website, which means having a .co.nz domain name is essential for doing business in New Zealand.

For companies exporting you need to consider 3 things
  1. Having a .nz domain name avoids the anti-US feeling in some markets
  2. Having a .com domain name is essential for the US market
  3. You could take out domain names in all your major markets .uk etc

You can get a domain name for each of your local markets because your web designer can point ALL your domain names at the same website.

The implication for New Zealand businesses trading in overseas markets is obvious. Having a local domain name is important in building a higher level of trust in your products and services. We have seen this in the Australian market, where .com.au domains perform better than .co.nz domains.
If your market is the UK and your company is based in NZ you would typically have two domain names yourcompany.co.uk and yourcompany.co.nz .You can have as many domain names as your wallet and your imagination allow.

See my previous post for more on how domain names are structured and check if you have the correct one for your business.

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