Why should you get a .com domain?

You’ve spent a lot of time creating a business plan, know all the ins and outs of your industry and now you’re ready to start your own business. You’ve even thought of creating a website, as you want your customers to find online. But which domain are you going to get? In this article, we talk about getting a .com domain and why this might be a good idea for your business.

Reasons for getting a .com domain

People expect you to have a .com domain

The most straightforward reason to get a .com domain for your business, is that most people will simply assume your website ends with .com. Research shows that people are 3.8 times more likely to assume it ends in .com than any other TLD. It might be worth it to get a .com domain, just so you don’t risk losing potential website visitors.

Most websites end in .com

It’s not that weird that people expect you to have a .com domain. More than half of all the millions and millions of websites end with .com. In June 2020, 50.9% of all top-level domains were .com domains. Now, if you realize that there are about 2 billion websites on the internet, then you know that 1 billion of them are a .com.  The second biggest extension? After .com comes .ru. With a market share of 6.4% it is significantly smaller than .com. .com can therefore rightly be called the dominant extension of the internet.

Credibility and reliability

Having a website with a .com domain may improve your credibility and reliability. A study done by Growthbadger shows that .com scores the highest trust ratings of all the extensions. Out of 5, it scores a 3.5. Another common extension, .net, scores a 3.2. As a business owner, being reliable and trustworthy are key to being successful. Possible customers won’t spend their money on your products if they don’t trust your business.

What about SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It simply means how well do search engines like Google and Bing find your website and where they will rank it in their search results.

When reading about the SEO effects on having a .com domain, there is a certain myth that always comes back. In short this myth says, having a .com is better for SEO. Although it is not entirely untrue, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Like people, Google also favors .com for many reasons,making it seem more trustworthy. But this doesn’t mean that any .com domain would automatically rank higher than any another domain.

A well written .net website, completely optimized for search engines, answering the questions the reader is looking for, or offering the product the buyer needs, will still rank better than a neglected .com domain. And that’s a good thing. It means that you, and your competitors, have to take care of your websites. This leads to a higher quality of pages, which then leads to a higher level of trust, and therefore more revenue.

Still, nothing will stand a .com website with SSL certification and decent SEO in the way of ranking first in all the search engines out there.

However, transferring your domain from a different TLD to .com could make a negative impact on your search engine rankings. Search engines don’t only look at page level, they also look at the domain level. Seeing a whole new domain all out of a sudden can cause the rankings to drop.

Are there exceptions? 

Sure, if you are a cheese farmer in the German village of Kleinkahl who only sells to the locals of Kleinkahl and maybe to the people from the nearby villages, then a .com domain might not be your top priority. It’s likely that your website will be entirely in German, so a .de extension will do the trick. But even then you are limiting yourself.

For example, if you ever do decide to start selling your amazing products online to cheese aficionados all over the world, then all of a sudden your .de website isn’t so appealing anymore. If you want your company to grow, .com is a great option for your brand awareness. Think hard before you make the decision to stay small and local. Your website is on the worldwide web, so thinking global even when acting local can definitely benefit you in the long run.

As you can see, there are many benefits in getting a .com domain for your website. It will certainly help your business thrive. If you feel you are ready for getting your own .com domain, then pick your own unique web domain in our easy tool below:

Is your desired domain name already taken, or does an option a little more out-of-the-box fit your business best? Then have a look at our article about the best alternatives for .com!