For years now, local and foreign businesses have been opting to use foreign third level and second level domain names to conduct their business online. While being the right choice at the time with .COM being more trusted and preferred domain than the local domain, a tremendous shift has been occurring. In the last decade, more and more businesses have been subscribing to local domains, and with reasons.
Why Local Domains?
More available domain names: Proliferation of blogs, websites and businesses has made it difficult, not to add expensive, to get a simple Third level or second level domain name like Kenic.com approved. It’s simply unavailable. You hence may be forced to come up with a weird TLD domain name to get approved which may misalign your business objective.
However, with local .KE domain names, there is a high chance of finding a domain name like www.simplesocks.co.ke available for registration. This small difference has made small and big local companies in Kenya able to better target their customers and increase sales.
To get closer to offline and online customers: Country Code top level domains like .KE give customers a clue as to where a business is located. A local online customer in Kenya is more likely to buy a product if they find that the product they want to buy is from a business located near them.
Furthermore, search engines rank companies based on their location. With a .KE domain and good search engine optimization practices, you are sure to get more relevant traffic which means more potential customers.
Increase business links with local businesses: When looking for deals, local businesses are more likely to source for business deals with companies with a local (.KE) online presence than with foreign companies. This could mean better business and better businesses strategies for the future.
Increase online stability and alleviate risk: Choosing a local (.KE) domain name and web hosting service provides more website stability and connection for customers visiting your website. For any startup or existing business to survive, getting a local domain is the first step to securing the business against cyber-squatting, hacking, domain hijacking and intellectual property theft.
Easy online marketing and brand segmentation for business: Multiple domain registration is an effective marketing strategy used by many top companies to highlight and promote different aspects of a brand including doing relative audience fragmentation when need be. It is now possible to conduct seamless online campaigns and make online sale reconciliations without getting confused.