Choosing Domains - Dot Com or NZ
It's a hard choice as to what domain name to use for your business website. Google at one time favoured keyword-rich domains, but that stopped many years ago. So maybe you can just use any random string of letters and numbers, right? Right?
Well, it's not just Google that looks at your domain name; customers do too. And in a world of phishing scams, the URL is under scrutiny even more than before. So choosing something relevant to your business name, industry and maybe even location still makes sense, hence enticing in the users to click that link.
Slugs / Internal Links
It is true that the URLs (slugs) within your site still matter, and should be both descriptive and match the "flavour" or content / H1 / page title. This will help your site URLs be returned in search results.
Regional or Global Domains
(dot.com or dot.nz)?
As we have long suspected, Google recently confirmed that country code top level domains (ccTLDs) will rank better than those from other countries or the generic "dot.com" domain. It completely makes sense therefore for you to utilise a .co.nz or just a .nz domain for your NZ-focused business. But if you want to reach the wider world, maybe consider a .com or other global domain name...
Take a look at the article in full below:
www.searchenginejournal.com/google-confirms-ranking-preference/522477/
Article published Tuesday 23rd of July 2024
