Three reasons for companies to consider using .brand TLDs

On February 28, 2017, ClickZ Intelligence presented the webinar ‘Still using .com? Here’s why 50% of all Fortune 500 companies are about to use .brand’ in association with Neustar.

This article has been adapted from a post originally published on our sister website ClickZ.

When asked why they were investigating the possibilities of .brand domains, more than 60% of attendees of the webinar answered that they wished to improve search engine marketing. Forty-three percent reported they wished to improve the customer experience.

So how can the adoption of .brand domains achieve these goals as well as alleviate other issues facing digital today?

Tony Kirsch from Neustar, Matt Dorville from Major League Baseball, and Katie Hankinson of VaynerMedia explored the use of .brand domains and their potential to improve the customer experience, advertising effectiveness, and overall long-term brand health.

.brand domains are being adopted by many of the top brands in the world

Currently there are approximately 550 “.brand” extensions across all sectors of business. Roughly 50 global brands have already adapted to the new industry standard of naming, and have created a ‘home.brand’ domain name.

Neustar’s Tony Kirsch has identified four major issues facing digital today:

1. Websites are becoming too large and complex to navigate – consumers want to find deeper content quickly and easily.
2. Inefficient calls to action – the large variety of techniques within advertising is not inspiring consumers to act how advertisers want them to.
3. Exponential growth in paid search – paid search is costly.
4. Inability to measure leakage – brands run the risk of customers getting distracted and going elsewhere while searching for content.

The use of .brand domains can counteract these issues by giving a company’s digital content its own identity. Consumers will have access to deeper content in a more direct and intuitive manner by merely typing in any number of URLs which end in .brand (i.e. surface.microsoft).

.brand domains make it simple for users to find content

Matt Dorville of Major League Baseball finds that the use of .brand domains is useful in building campaigns. Because the .brand URLs are easy to remember, consumers find it less complicated to find the content they are being driven to by campaigns. They also work well in a social spaces such as Twitter or blogging because of their ease and simplicity to share.

Another added benefit is the elimination of domain squatting. Because .brands are owned exclusively by the company, this opens up a whole range of URLs that can be used without the need to purchase the URL from a third party.

The use of .brand domains allows for a clarity of message in your call to action

From an advertising perspective, Katie Hankinson of VaynerMedia believes that .brand domains have the potential to create an ‘elegant and intuitive way’ to direct people to content on your site. She also finds that many brands are interested in what is new in digital and how they can capitalize on the changes.

Want to hear more?

Interested in learning more about why many of the world’s largest and most innovative organizations are adopting this new evolution in digital? Then watch the Still using .com? Here’s why 50% of all Fortune 500 companies are about to use .brand’ webinar on demand to hear more.

 

For more information on how you can get involved with the ClickZ Webinar Series please contact sam.lawson@clickz.com.

This webinar was produced in association with Neustar. Click here to read our collaborative content guidelines. Views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Search Engine Watch.

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