When it comes to creating your very first website, whether that be for your business, first blog, online store or portfolio. One question that you should be asking yourself is what domain suffix is right for your website.
Incase you don’t know what a domain suffix is, it’s the end of a domain such as .com, .com.au, .net, .org and the list goes on.
While at face value these suffixes may not seem that important, they in fact can play a major role when it comes to brand recognition and SEO. Especially for local Aussie based or international based websites.
What’s The Best Domain Suffix For An Aussie Based Website?
.com Vs .com.au – Which Is Right For You?
So which one is best? .com or .com.au? Well… It kind of depends on the website you want to build.
Say you plan on building a local plumbing or mechanical website for your small business, then a .com.au would be a great fit. This is because you will be targeting local customers within a certain city in Australia.
Many times local business owners have come to me with an existing website that has a .com suffix and is targeting customers from Melbourne or Sydney. Grrrr! This is one of my pet peeves and still bugs me to this day!
The .com.au domain suffix is also great for
- Local photography portfolio websites
- National based news websites like news.com.au
- National based online stores like gumtree.com.au that target Aussie readers
- Australian forums like whirlpool.com.au
What about for my blog?
One mistake I see many first time bloggers make is using a .com.au or .net.au instead of a .com. Even if you plan on writing content and making videos mainly for Aussies, I almost always advise to go with a .com as you can target a world wide audience instead of just Australia.
So by opting for a .com.au for you blog, you are almost pigeon holing yourself to only Aussie readers when people all love the world may be missing out!
One thing to keep in mind is that 50% off all internet traffic in the world comes from the United States. So if you are neglecting this market, there is a whole lot of visitors, subscribers and potentially money left on the table!
Take the final independence blog aussiefirebug.com for example (I highly recommend checking it out!). This blog targets Aussie readers, but his content is also relevant for those in the USA or Europe. So it would make sense to opt for a .com domain suffix.
What about an Australian based travel blog?
So maybe you are about to pack your bags and travel around Australia while documenting your trip. Who knows, you might continue overseas afterwards. As this is an Aussie based site, logic would then determine to get a .com.au right?
Well, actually no. This is because you have to think about the web searcher.
There is no doubt that you will get visitors from Australia. But I would bet that most of your traffic would come from other countries for those who want to come to Australia and are researching their next trip.
So in this instance, a .com would make sense as you can target both the Australian audience and the international one.
So if you are interested in making your very first website. You can check out my awesome guide where I review some of the best web hosts for Australian websites and bloggers. Pssst! My number one pick is only $3.95 a month and includes a free .com domain! Not bad!
If you are in the process of making your own .com.au website, please share it below as I would love to see what other Aussies are making.