Gaining trust with Country Code Top Level Domains
The pay-per-click advertising process all starts with alluring display ad text that includes amongst other things, a display URL representing your brand, site, or store. With all the different ad text permutations bombarding the search user, case studies have indicated substantial cognitive evaluation of ads prior to the first click. Getting clicks from search users has never been all that difficult, but pre-qualifying clicks and gaining visitor trust is harder than ever. One key differentiator between your ad and your competition may be your top-level domain.
The Many Benefits of using ccTLD’s
Many may argue that the bulk of domain extensions are probably pretty useless to smaller brands and websites, for instance registering “nike.biz” might be a good brand protection idea for the sneaker giant, but does the average business really need their standard “.com” domain plus a “.mobi” domain? Probably not.
However, that’s not the case with country-code top-level domains (aka ccTLD’s). Many search users will prefer local sites when evaluating and choosing only a few options in their early buying decision process. Indications within available metrics also suggest that users are likely to spend more time on sites that utilize ccTLD’s of local individuals or businesses.
It’s pretty obvious that most potential visitors evaluate ads prior to clicking, and that’s why a ccTLD can make a big difference in search marketing. Visitors innately trust sites that use a ccTLD because:
- Most consumers are naturally inclined to favor local brands and businesses.
- Consumers equate local to mean better quality, cheaper shipping, and stronger domestic economics.
- Prospective customers don’t have to worry as much about legislation, legalese or foreign policy when making purchasing decisions from local businesses – they want to play in a familiar sandbox.
- Ad quality is often much higher because local searches make sense to potential visitors.
If you already own a ccTLD for your site and are just forwarding that ccTLD to your “.com” domain, you can try testing the effect of using your ccTLD on search campaigns. If your domain registrar supports domain masking, try enabling it and forwarding traffic to your default “.com” pages. Domain masking will replace the domain name and extension with the ccTLD of your choice, so that all your content appears to be local. You may be surprised to see a spike in clicks and conversions with the added trust that comes naturally with a ccTLD.
