What Could A gTLD Do For Your Business?

In today’s online climate, being clear with your customers on who you are and what you do needs to start with your domain name.

Over the past couple of years the web has experienced a massive growth spurt in the form of generic top level domains (gTLDs). But are these tailored website endings right for your company? In this article we take a look at the boost that these few letters can add to your business – and to your bottom line.

Let’s start at the very beginning: what is a gTLD? It stands for generic top-level domain, and if you were to explain it in layman’s terms, you would describe it as the suffix at the end of a website address – that is, those letters that come after the final full stop.

During the infancy of the internet, a small number of basic domains – .com, .net, and .org being the most common – were enough to cover the world’s basic domain extension needs. But as demands on the internet grew, it became clear that a major expansion was necessary.

The need for new domain suffixes really became apparent around the end of 2013 when the standard domain names started to get gobbled up at a faster rate, with .com being the most popular. In order to satisfy the need for more options, a slew of new suffixes were released in early 2014, with many more appearing since then. UK2 offers a variety of these stylish new endings; we offer the best and brightest of the gTLDs currently out there for the picking. Check them out here.

What are some of the advantages to affixing that new finisher to your site’s web address?

It all comes down to the power of specificity in brand recognition. Let’s say you’ve got a business that has a fairly generic name. Slap .com on the end of your business name and what do you have? A generic name with a generic suffix. Take that same brand name and pop .construction on the end… Now everybody knows you are in the construction sector. Into inking people? .tattoo will stop you from getting confused with that dusty old calligraphy shop in the same city.

A new gTLD also makes your business easier to navigate. An internationally recogniszed sushi bar in Los Angeles had a website that was bursting at the seams with its content, but they were receiving complaints that their takeout menu was too difficult to find. However, once they put their menu onto a totally new, mobile friendly, pared-down site that ended with a .menu suffix, their delivery business soared.

Another great function of this wider variety of domain extensions is to separate distinct parts of your brand, giving each  part of your business its own website. Take, for example, an actress who had a thriving stage career on Broadway, but who also had a film career taking off in London. She created a .london site that focused on her work on the east side of the Atlantic and a .NYC site for the west. She told casting directors where she was based just by giving her website address and they were able to audition her for the appropriate jobs. Her audition bookings went through the roof.

It has never been more important to set yourself apart from the crowd in the online realm, and a great way to do this is to let consumers, clients, and customers know exactly who you are from the moment they hear your name. Using a more specific website address creates a link between your company’s name and your company’s function, which then helps consumers to know exactly what you offer.

The fun doesn’t stop there: you can also use UK2’s handy web hosting services which will ensure your specialiszed website and domain stay up and running: take a look at our packages on our website. The easier your function or sector is to understand from the outset, the faster consumers can find you and the faster you can make your business grow.