The 10 best .co domains for your business and the case of "European domain"

(10/08/2010 11:00 am)

When you read this, it´s very likely that your competitors still aren´t aware of this golden opportunity. It will be too late for them, when you have done your homework !

Google has recently introduced worldwide geo-targeting for the new top level domain .CO.

Geo-targeting is a way for Google to see if a Website has local or international interest. If your Website is using CO.UK as the Internet address then you will rank better in Google UK than in Google.com or Google.be. If you instead use .COM Website will rank you well in any Google search engine. A .CO Website will now give you the same ranking opportunities. used-cars.co or used-cars.com ? same same in the eyes of Google.

150 million .COM domains have been registered over time. The well of reasonable .COM domains has dried out for good.

Only 400.000 .CO domains have been registered after the recent launch. Still many great ones available.

With the right .CO domain names you can create mini sites targeting specific content. The best .CO domains for your business will make your potential clients turn their heads and look in your direction.

The case of "European domain"

To show you the strength of a great domain name let me give you a real world example from our own business, which is domain registrations.

"European domain" is an important search term for us, as we want to be found by users looking for domain registrations in Europe. It´s also an important search term for our competitors. "European domain" is actually a hyper competitive search term. There are tons of results (36.1 million). There is even an intense battle going on in the Adwords department, where click prices will cost Eur 2,50-3 for a premium position.

We are currently in position no. 3 for organic search results in Google.com, and in the beginning it was only due to the domain name. Later we developed appropriate content, links etc to stay on top, however for a long time the domain name was the only asset, we had going for us.

So how much is a .CO domain name worth for you?

How many clients should you get to cover the costs of a .CO domain ?

When you invest in a .CO domain, the investment will pay for itself each day. These are our stats for the last 3 months (May-July 2010) for "European domain".

• 209 users clicked on our organic search result in Google

• 7 of these users made orders directly (3,35% Goal 1: Domain purchase)

Remember that we did not pay for this listing. If it had been via Adwords we would probably pay around Eur 0.50-1 for each visitor.

It´s commonly known that organic search results convert better than Adwords, given that users take them more seriously. We´re also using Google Adwords and the search term "European domain" converted only 1.82% in the same period. That is half the conversions compared to the organic search results.

The 10 best .CO domains for your business

I suggest the following exercise. Write down the 10 most used search terms, which any potential client would use, to find the type of service / product you offer. Then test if these 10 search terms are available as .CO domains (with and without hyphen (-)). If available then you could be looking at a vacant real estate lot in cyber space with plenty of potential.

The domain name of any site is the foundation to rank well in the search engines. Yes, content and links are also important, but the right domain address is the first building block. You can always edit and adjust your content, you cannot edit the domain name.

Done with the exercise? Test your .co domains in the search box below.

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