Domain extensions are flying of the shelf in the last few years. Current expanding market forced ICANN to introduce hundreds of new generic TLDs. Their ultimate plan is to release more than 1300 new domain name extensions, and experts predict that this move might completely change online branding industry.

Online branding today is as hard as it comes. Internet and social networks made everybody visible, which is why many companies want to make an extra step that will enable them to position their offer higher than everyone else’s. Some of these companies saw introduction of new generic TLDs as a turning point that will boost their brand’s visibility and make them stand out from their competition. They were right!

Great branding opportunity

Most internet users still don’t realize the advantages generic TLDs bring. More than 55% of them don’t even know that new TLDs are introduced. This represents a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and marketing agencies who want to build strong brands on these new and much less expensive TLDs. Since researches show that these extensions are sometimes as successful as ‘.com’, entrepreneurs need to act fast in order to catch the best offers. Unlike ‘.com’ and other regular TLDs, these generic extensions allow entrepreneurs to share more information about their business within its domain name, which completely changed online branding. Many content marketing agencies already seized this opportunity and managed use the strong bond between SEO and content marketing to implement their strategies.

Some company’s acted fast

Many big and small businesses realized the benefits of new generic TLDs, and these are some of the most successful examples:

• Abc.xyz – An ultimate example of the best generic TLDs usage comes from Google. Alphabet Inc. is a conglomerate that will take over all Google owned companies and it will start its business with a highly brandable domain name.
• Dekora.fashion (previous domain name was Dekoraconceptstore.com) – Dekora managed to make their domain more memorable and easier to type. Since good ‘.com’ domains are really hard to get these days, they used a gTLD which explains their business in the best way.
• Risurisu.paris (used to be Risurisu.fr) – Most SEO experts advise companies to choose country code TLDs for businesses that target customers at the local level. Risurisu fashion store went far beyond that with adding their exact location, which is also one of the biggest fashion capitals of the world.
• Wheretotravel.today – This traveling website made its domain name more intriguing, and used this catchy question as a great branding tool.
• Printnw.rocks (before it was called Printnw.com) – Another great example how creative generic TLD can turn a regular domain name, into a catchy slogan.

How new TLDs affect SEO?

New generic TLDs will definitely have an impact on search engine optimization. Currently both internet users and Google search algorithms are getting used to them. This process won’t take long and soon generic TLDs will be fully integrated into search results. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Web Spam team said that his company will need some time for determining the ways for validating new TLDs. But, this transition won’t last long and soon enough this search engine will present the most relevant results with the range of TLDs that go from ‘.com’ to ‘.whatever’.

What should entrepreneurs do?

Although generic TLDs bring huge benefits, ‘.com’ will still represent the ‘main street of internet’, at least for some time. Since ICANN will release around 1,300 new TLDs, we can assume that only one part of these will gain higher traction. Companies should choose generic TLDs that match products and services they provide. This is definitely a safe bet, which is why TLDs like ‘.law’ and ‘.fashion’ will soon become very popular.

Same goes for location-specific TLDs. Now companies will be able to add specific cities to their domain name (at least the ones that do business in metropolises like New York and Paris). This will also allow specific branches of big companies to open their own websites, with both company and location specific domain names.

Companies that have younger customer base and that can have less formal marketing approach can choose wide variety of different generic TLD’s in order to create catchier and more memorable slogans. Domain extensions like ‘.me’ and ‘.ly’ allow marketers to play domain name scrabble and attract their audience with funky sounding web addresses.

Although the launch of new generic top level domains generally passed unnoticed, we are actually witnessing internet evolution that’s happening due to huge increase in the number of its users. This is probably the best proof that from sixties and the ARPANET, there hasn’t been any other invention that was such a drastic leap forward in the world as we know it today.

Read More