When you have multiple electronic products (books, music, video, audio) and you are already sending news about them to clients or subscribers (such as newsletter subscribers) have you considered setting up a unique domain for the products? Does this even make sense?
With the increase in electronic products and services delivered in digital format or online, it can be a challenge to make new products stand out. In order to improve the visibility of a digital product, such as an ebook or special report consider setting up a keyword-specific domain name. A few examples of such specific domain names include:
- masterbusinessblogging.com – Business Blog Mastery with Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad
- breakthroughemailmarketingsecrets.com – A product offered by Bob Bly (bly.com)
- findyourniche.co.nz – Recruitment specialists research, consumer insights and analytics
If you are looking at creating information products or are delivering services via the internet, you might consider setting up a separate website (or sites) to better differentiate your products and also, as a secondary benefit, create additional links between your primary website and your product or service-specific site.
The Web Worker Daily article (http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/06/30/what-to-do-when-the-dot-com-you-want-isnt-available/ ) about what to do when the “.com” name you want isn’t available offers a series of good suggestions for thinking of different ways to create your online domain identity.
Top level domains (“TLDs”) are often the first stop for people as they set up their websites or explore options for establishing a primary, or multi-site, destination for their online activities. When you think of how you can search for domains, the simple form and the drop-down box with different domain suffixes defaults to “.com” rather than any other options.
If you are looking to set up a local presence in an international market, finding a local domain name, meaning a name with the local country domain attached, can be a challenge. In some cases the domain names are not open for purchase through domain name registrars. Peru, for example, has a domain name registration option that can be completed by non-Peruvian individuals and companies, but doesn’t make it easy. You need to be comfortable navigating their website in Spanish and then finding, and completing the registration form. Once it has been submitted, you then need to submit your registration payment through a bank transfer. Online payment isn’t an option.
Thinking about mobile users
The internet is increasingly relied upon by people with mobile devices – smart phones, iPhones, multimedia devices (e.g., iPod touch) and netbooks. They are reading websites on smaller screens and sometimes as text only. If you are using a standard .com domain then there are ways to alter your website, if you are using a content management system (such as WordPress) to make it more friendly to mobile devices. An alternative is to set up a .mobi domain with a simpler website design and navigation plan that is more readable on smaller screens.
Localizing your content
If you are providing content to users in multiple locations, you might need to make it easier for visitors to access your websites using country-specific domain names. In some cases, you might be able to create domain names that use a local language (e.g., Spanish, French, Russian, etc.) rather than an English word, which might not be as well-known.
From a marketing perspective, your use of international TLDs (Top Level Domains) can make it easier to tailor a promotion or country-specific content to a unique domain name. Plus, the links between your other websites (if you have multiple domains for your business or organization) can help to improve your ranking in search engines as you add content across the various websites.
Learn more about domain names
You can see all of the domain name options that currently exist by looking through our domain name glossary. If you are interested in registering a new domain name you can do that too.
I just want to extend my congratulations to GaleriAd with the launch of their new website!
GaleriAd is using a hosting package from Expat Internet Services and has built a Flash-powered site to promote their “integral consumer connection” services for clients in Peru and Latin America.
GaleriAd’s mission (the “unofficial” translation from Spanish) reads:
GaleriAd is an independent agency and creative leader that creates strong and provocative emotional connections between good companies and their consumers. Using ideas that are relevant, inspirational and disruptive
Their website offers information about their vision, values, who works there and their methodology they have entitled “Connector Tool”.
No matter how hard you have worked on creating an online presence through your personal or professional website, you will need to plan on spending time to make it “searchable” and “findable” for major search engines. A post over at the Globalpreneur points out these key concepts as SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing).
The post mentions “choosing words, content, and design. . . to meet the needs of search engines” – this translates into having a well-organized website that has a clear hierarchy (e.g., home page, other main pages, sub-pages) with links that can be followed by the search engines. There are a few ways to achieve a search engine-friendly structure for your site:
- Small content = fewer pages: if your site is concise and can express all of your key messages in just a few pages, you can have a very simple website structure that is easy to follow and index
- Rely on a content management system: when you have more content, it needs to be organized logically and a content management tool (such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, just a name a few) can help you build the structure and maintain your content with less emphasis on coding and more on writing.
Search engines want to find new and changing content. When you take the time to create a website, you should expect to invest some time each week into maintaining and expanding your online identity. When you consistently update your site’s content, search engines will create new index connections and make it easier for other internet users to find your site and link to your content.
When you supplement the standard search engine results with search engine marketing, you can draw attention to specialized content on your site or highlight new services and products. Google AdWords is a popular example of search engine marketing. You can spend some time and learn about how to use AdWords at the Google AdWords Learning Center. If you are just getting started, the online training can provide some practical background and explanations about online advertising and website promotion.
Good luck and don’t forget about other major search engines and the importance of looking at more localized resources and multi-lingual tools. You can find examples of international search engines with local language versions in the Wikipedia article on search engine marketing.
US President Barack Obama gained (and maintains) a huge number of “followers” through his dedication to the ideas of communication, transparency and participation throughout his political campaign in 2007-2008.
In fact, his media team is looking continue the practice of being directly engaged with the people who support his ideas and have a vested interest in seeing the impact of President Obama’s decisions. The objectives of engaging with citizens and keeping them informed through something more than a press conference has a parallel lesson for anyone who is building an online identity, especially a global identity.
Communication
When you establish a blog, an e-newsletter, an online forum or a website with all of this things you are looking to communicate more effectively with your clients or readership. There are increasing opportunities to use video and audio content as part of your communications tool kit as well. YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe and Viddler, just to name a few.
If you are looking to use video on your website or blog, you can create accounts on the services mentioned above then embed links or small video players on your website. Many blogging services allow you to embed these links and make it easy for you to share video content you have created and stored elsewhere on the Internet.
Transparency
If you have a business or operate as an independent professional (e.g., freelancer, consultant or advisor), your reputation and the value of your services is a key to maintaining and growing your client base. Building a reputation takes time and, for a business, is founded on the feedback of clients. How can you make potential customers aware of the value of your services? Having a means to publish and comment on the feedback from existing clients and colleagues.
Success in a business, especially for global professionals, increasingly relies upon partnering with other organizations. Your online identity can be an online record of your work and enable potential partners to find you and understand how your expertise can help them be successful too.
If you are an established professional and are looking to increase your reputation and presence in your field, having an online identity is an increasingly valuable tool to differentiate your work and achievements. When you set up a blog or professional profile site (essentially an online resume and portfolio), you make it easier for potential employers and colleagues to find you and understand what you can offer an organization.
Participation
Simply pushing information out to a mailing list doesn’t enable people to give feedback or truly engage with you or your organization. While it might seem like a chaos-inducing idea to make easy for visitors to your website to suggest services or propose ways to make your organization more useful, that is exactly what can make your online presence stand out.
Forums and sites with interactive tools (Facebook, InterNations, Google Groups, Yahoo! Groups, Ning, PBWiki and others) can make it easy for people with specific interests to gather together and comment on services (being provided or ones that are needed) and find people who can help. There are plenty of “solutions” represented on the Internet, the goal is to create the opportunities to connect the people who need products and services with those who can deliver them. If your website can make this process easier for people you are interacting with, then you create not only an advantage for yourself but can help others as well.
More perspective
If you want to read more about what people are thinking of how the US President will use the internet there is a related blog post at O’Reilly Radar.
Tools to create your own global identity
if you are looking to get a “quick start” to developing your online identity, you might consider using the Quick Blogcast service to begin creating and publishing content immediately. This service also has the option of using your own domain name to build more awareness in search engines and other blogs.
If you are looking to establish a clear name for your organization, business or simply for a personal (professional or social) website, having your own domain name is an important first step. And, finally, if you are setting up an online community – either large or small – you can use a variety of open source tools that integrate into your website.
There was an excellent article recently published about the 18 rules the best web developers follow and it highlighted an important idea for people who live and work internationally. Two of the rules struck me as particularly relevant to the idea of expat internet sites.
3. Be a source of information. Virtually everyone on the web is looking for specific information. Whether it is for a product, service, or just educational, sharing your expertise and experiences sets your website apart from the others and adds value to the content.
Your website can be a means to share advice, demonstrate your expertise, a way to promote a cause or organizatio or the starting point in a sales process. Regardless of what your ultimate goal is, you need to think about why people will want to visit your site and stay there once they have found it. If you are thinking about offering information that applies to more than one country or region, you have the added “adventure” of thinking about the different cultures of your audiences.
14. Take advantage of the “worldwide” web. The world is a big place and more and more people are coming to the web. Don’t be afraid to expand your web presence beyond your local niche or country. As long as the information you are providing is useful, the visitors will come to learn more, regardless of where they are. Ideas transcend borders.
if you have experience living and working internationally you already have an advantage when putting your website together. You can draw upon your own “lessons learned” and add the benefit of your foreign-but-local perspective to the topics you address on your site. When connecting with more than one culture, you can also draw upon the variety of popular icons or prominent themes from the cultures to make your messages more relevant.
With more people traveling around the world for both business and pleasure, it makes sense to think about how you can maintain your professional or personal website regardless of your location. While reading The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
When you find new contacts in an overseas location, you have an opportunity to build a friendship and, if you are involved with business there, expand your visibility locally. People increasingly look to the internet to find reviews and news about products or services. Your website can offer a local “flavor” that makes it easier for new contacts to see your work as both trustworthy and legitimate. There are many programs that make it easier for you to localize your content (examples include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal) but if your domain name is still in English, your potential clients or visitors, who don’t happen to speak or read English as a first language, might not find your website. Because of this, you might want to establish multiple “internationalized” web domains.
Domain names for local and international identity
You might be wondering how registering a domain name could help you or your organization establish itself on the Internet. More specifically, you might be considering if it is worth the time to go through the whole process.
The good news is that the “whole process” is actually quite simple. The better news is that having your own domain is rather like owning your own home versus renting – without all of the maintenance hassles! Domain names enable a person or an organization to establish a unique identity. This new identity can be a local one or a global identity. There can be a clever play on words or a simple statement that captures the essence of who you are or what you are doing on the internet and in the world.
If you are involved in international activities or have a portable career, establishing a more consistent global identity is more than desirable – it is essential. The people you interact with will want to know how to contact you or be involved with your organization. Establishing your presence on the internet makes it easier for people to get in touch and stay up to date on the latest news and events in your part of the world.
Being known internationally is a fact of life
Consider that the huge variety of expatriate internet sites all offer you a unique set of information about a given location (or a whole set of locations). Each site wants to provide you with specialized information and draw you to their site. As an individual or organization, this makes sense for you too.
The unique information you can offer might be a collection of professional achievements (e.g., professional articles, graphic designs, fiction and non-fiction literary works). Your global identity may be best characterized through a series of events spread across several years time and multiple locations. These types of information can be quickly and simply communicated through a online presence characterized by a descriptive domain name.
You may be affiliated with an organization or business that has partners in multiple locations. It is increasingly a business standard to have contacts throughout the world. In some cases, your organization might be targeting multiple, international locations in order to improve their market opportunities or reach a specific group of people. All of these cases underscore the importance of creating a global identity that you can develop into a platform for your operational needs.
Expat Internet Services is dedicated to making it easy for individuals and organizations to create and maintain websites from anywhere in the world.
The global reach of the Internet is often an important tool for expatriates living and working overseas. While away from home and interacting with friends and colleagues, a website is a lifeline for communication and collaboration. The variety of products available through Expat Internet Services simplify the process of setting up a new website, registering domain names, creating online media (such as blogs, podcasts and photo albums) and maintaining a global presence for an individual or an organization.
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