Any new business startup, or a product marketing campaign launch, based in Canada will need to make the following decision in regards to their online visibility. More specifically which domain extension to choose for their internet presence, .ca or .com?
TOP 9 13 REASONS for CHOOSING .ca
[1] Marketing Advantage
There are over 77 million .com domains registered, compare that to just over 1 million .ca domains. While .com’s strength lies in numbers and popularity, this fact is also its greatest weakness. There is a reason why many believe “all the good ones are taken”, this is because most of them are taken. Now you might still be able to find a name registrable name that is respectable to you, most likely you will be picking a brandable name of secondary quality, degrading your ideal first pick for the sake of .com extension, and in doing so you are blending yourself with 77 million other equally brandable names. After which you will burn millions of dollars in advertising and effort in order to make yours somewhat distinguishable. However in this sea of meaningless hard to remember names lies your opportunity to stand out in an easier, less expensive way, with a short, memorable, .ca domain.
While in the current market conditions your .ca domain will command only a fraction of the .com’s resale value, as can bee seen in the top 100 .ca sales vs top 100 .com sales. This resale value should not be a deciding factor for most businesses. The Canadian extensions value and those of other ccTLDs lies in its differentiability, in its ability to standing out from the crowd. You’ve probably heard by now the saying if you try to appeal to everyone you end-up appealing to very few.
See a few domain examples of how dot-ca and other ccTLD sites are already doing it. Which one would your customers prefer springrolls.ca or springrollsonline.com ?
Domain Registrations Count:
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1,072,120 .ca domains registered
77,007,000 .com domains registered
Compare 1 million .ca domains against 77 million .com domains, that are currently registered, then ask yourself which extension is crowded? There is 1 .ca domain for every 77 .com domains. Which one do you think will make it easier for you to stand out from the crowd?
[2] Purchase Price
$14,855 is the average price of top 100 .ca domains sold
$300,682 is is the average price of top 100 .com domains sold so far in 2008
A premium Quality .ca domain that is going to be easily remembered by your customers is simply much more affordable than a medium quality .com
[3] Reach Canadian Audience
Canada is one of the world’s most wired nations and early-adopters of new technology. Canadians continue to use the Internet for personal and business reasons in ever increasing numbers.
When running a campaign that targets specifically the Canadian marketplace,
running on a .ca domain, will give you a competitive advantage. A dot-ca website will tell people that your website is proudly Canadian, that is why over 75% of Canadians prefer to shop on a dot-ca websites. Canadians ordered $5 billion worth of goods online in 2005 and 63% of these were with Canadian vendors. This means that for every $100 spent by Canadian adults on-line during 2005, $63 was spent with Canadian vendors. Reach this valuable target market with a dot-ca domain and get a piece of the pie.
Population Facts:
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Canada has approximately 1/10th of the population of the USA
Canada: 30,000,000
USA: 300,000,000
For more information go to www.onemilliondomains.ca
[4] Insta-Credibility and G7 Economy
Canada is part of the G7 economic group.
With world’s 9th largest economy.
This fact alone has a positive impact on the way your domain extension is perceived. Dot .ca is not an obscure domain extension, it stands for Canada, from Canada, Canadian Quality, as a result it carries a higher level of trust value than lets say a .cc from cocos islands. Why not use Canada’s prominence to your advantage.
Alternatively you can opt-out for a more anonymous .com, although this strategy has its own benefits, it makes your company’s image less transparent to an internaut, to whom it is not immediately clear whether you are operating from a shady part of the world or not.
[5] Ambassador of .CAnada
If you are not convinced yet, that .ca might be a better choice for you.
Perhaps you might want to do it for your kids, register a .ca domain for a better future of Canadians.
By running your business on a .ca Canadian brand, you are unofficial Canada’s ambassador and marketer, promoting Canada globally on the internet. If your business offers a reputable product or service, you are increasing not only the value of your own brand but also the Canada’s brand value for all Canadians, and global customers.
The benefits of your work and positive reputation not only impact directly your business name but also Canada’s image, thereby increasing Canada’s brand value in the eye of global consumers. This of course trickles down to Canadian based businesses of today and the future, albeit in small but nevertheless meaningful way. With a .ca you are not just a drop in the ocean, you are part of the Canadian brand. Ask not what Canada can do for you, but what you can do for Canada.
[6] Value and Benefits of ccTLD’s
What are Others Saying?
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Don’t just take our word for it, let’s see
what others are saying? about .ca and ccTLD’s
“In the domain world, the .com domains are among the most sought after domains on the market”
“However, the popularity of Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) such as .ca and .cn have been gaining strength in the domain market”
“So what is causing the boom in ccTLDs? Well, unlike the .com, these ccTLDs like the .ca and the .cn seem to be attracting more end users. These ccTLDs can provide geo-targeted and often times exclusive traffic, which is a benefit the .com doesn’t boast on its resume.
The popularity of ccTLDs is not limited to the .ca and the .cn. In all, the ccTLD registrations grew to about 51.5 million in the past year. At this rate we should be expecting to celebrate more milestones in the near future. ”
- Joe Palombo, Key Accounts Manager, SEDO
“The ccTLD brands a domain with a cultural identity and National Identity.
Choosing the appropriate ccTLD is akin to using a country’s national language in advertising.”
- Freddy Schiwek, EuroDNS.com
“I wish I had taken ccTLD’s more seriously. I think this is especially true for those of us that resell our names. While I was in Spain this summer, I couldn’t help but notice that most of the small and medium businesses I saw had .es ccTLDs. Many large companies marketed ccTLDs locally as well. If only I had registered 100,000 of them to sell at 1000-10,000 Euros a piece!
The Domain In Spain Falls Mainly On The .es Extension
Instead I sat there comfortably fooling myself that .com was all that would ever matter.
More than anything I like the ccTLD names and I’m kicking myself in the ass for not having more of them.
We are noticing it is easier to get a website ranked in Google.ccTLD if you have domain.ccTLD. In other words, Our aeiou.com customers are reporting higher traffic on their ccTLD names from the respective countries.”
“I have always liked ccTLDs and with Internet penetration having now reached critical mass, allowing people to find a local provider of just about any product or service online, the various local ccTLDS are more attractive than ever. Over the past year or two I’ve noticed an increasing number of aftermarket sales for .es (Spain), .fr (France), .ca (Canada) and many others (along with the long-time .de and .co.uk powerhouses).
As an American, if I cannot get the term I want in .com, I see .us as my next best option. Unlike .net (which would be most people’s preferred alternative) the .us extension imparts a valuable message in the domain name by telling surfers where you are based. Many countries have looked to their local ccTLD first because they want to buy locally and there is also an aspect of national pride there. To a large degree, people around the world are the same, so I think Americans – when increasingly forced to look for an alternative to .com due to the scarcity and expense of names in the gold standard extension – will increasingly give serious consideration to their .us extension.”
- Ron Jackson, DNJournal.com
[7] FREE Privacy Protection
Thanks to Jeffrey Behrendt and his interview on Canadian Domain Law, with Zak Muscovitch, Canada’s Leading domain lawyer, we get a glance on how the Law in Canada might make .ca domain names more valuable.
[8] Privacy Policy Free of Charge
While many domain registration entities nickle and dime you for protecting your privacy. Canadian Internet Registration Authority, gives you this option at no charge.
CIRA privacy policy
[9] is .com really Global?
The global presence argument still misguides many new Canadian start-ups. Many of them register a cocktail of hard to remember characters in the .com extension as their domain name, because they are misinformed by the “it must be .com argument”, (although this is becoming less common). This happens regardless whether they are international corporations or not, they want to have a global presence or be seen as a global company. Who doesn’t? and why limit yourself to only local Canadian market right? But is it really true that having a .com domain gives you automatically global presence\reach, while .ca is a sentence to provincialism?
We do not think so. We believe that in the marketing arena, the benefits of a short, memorable, easy to type, and hard to misspell premium .ca name, far out weight any benefits of a medium quality empty vessel .com domain. Our advise is don’t settle for mediocrity when the .com you really want is either taken, or out of reach financially. Consider a premium .ca, establish a presence, and after your business takes off and you really want a .com, it will be more affordable to you then. Look at sedo.com as an example, a German company in the domain aftermarket business, they started from the German country code .de as sedo.de, later to acquire sedo.com
In making a naming decision One has to remind oneself, is it really about you or is it about your customer, if it’s about your customer then don’t you want to give them a name that they can easily remember and experience (remember they are going to type it in on a daily basis, on their iPhones, Blackberries …) isn’t that the purpose of the name after all. Also don’t forget your marketing team, and give them a charismatic name to work with.
If you area tech startup, most likely you will be in need of funding, which means pitching presentations to Venture Capitalists. Put yourself in VC’s shoes for a second, venture capitalists see hundreds of pitches, the first thing they see is your company name, most of which are horrible and easily forgettable, since naming is a type of creative process that is not a natural fit with talented people from the technical field. Making a pitch under a memorable name, makes you stand out and thus makes the VC more receptive of your business plan idea, and puts your company automatically in a more advantageous position. This is easier done with a dot-ca of course.
Given the option of a premium .ca and a mediocre .com, is the choice starting to look more clear?
“dmitri says:
Travel helps, but it is not really necessary to travel to understand the value of ccTLDs. Open Financial Times (readily available anywhere in the US), what do you see? Sure, some .coms here and there, but mostly co.uk and org.uk! And lately – .tv. (From what I hear from my British friends, tv is advertised left and right in the UK).
In Russia, com is virtually non-existent. .ru is king (or czar, if you will), with .net (for whatever reason) in the second place. When I mention .com, people stare at me – what’s that supposed to mean? No kidding.
Bottomline – com is mostly an American thing, not even global.”
[10] Better Ranking on Google
It is no secret that your website will rank higher organically on Google Search Result Pages for people searching in Canada or on Google.ca. For internet users searching in Canada, Google will automatically redirect you to Google.ca, unless you explicitly specify you want to search on Google.com.
For examples of how .ca websites rank higher, you can test this out quickly yourself. Any local or national business running on .ca with moderate rankings will show this.
Search for the term “Namer” on Google.ca and you will see our site Namer.ca on first page, while on Google.com we will show slightly lower, due to a more competitive landscape, we suppose.
[11] TV Advertising => Increasing Mindshare
If you watch closely most commercials and TV ads in Canada nowadays showcase company domain names with the .ca extension. You might still see an occasional .com but it’s getting rarer and rarer.
What this means for any business registered in Canada is that companies are spending billions of dollars on advertising, promoting the .ca on tv, in print, online, …in short everywhere. This means if your company runs on .ca it is getting free prime time exposure, its mindshare is increasing while the early adopted .com is decreasing, and in the future will be perceived as odd and less trustworthy when compared to its .ca counterpart’s, at least in Canada. Although this trend is arriving late compared to a higher .co.uk saturation in United Kingdom, and .de in Germany, nevertheless it has arrived in Canada as well.
Don’t believe me? Just read, Is .ca the domain extension of choice for businesses operating in Canada?
[12] SEO Benefits
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Internet Marketers understand how to rank, and dominate in the search engines like google. One of the SEO techniques you will learn from them is the importance of “having the right and relevant anchor text people use when linking to your website”, the anchor text is the keyword(s) you want to rank well for. Having the exact keyword domain allows you to influence the anchor text people use when linking to you, indirectly and naturally without asking for it. This is a huge advantage.
And of course it is still relatively easy to obtain exact match domain names in the .ca extension at affordable prices, you have been warned, get them while you still can.
[13] Canada Ranks 2nd as a World Brand
“Global credentials of such magnitude are a tremendous boost to the reputation of Canadian businesses. So if you have a Canadian based business that provides goods and services internationally, don’t be shy to say “made in Canada”. Much like an athlete flaunting his or her endorsements, post it on your website and marketing material, say it proudly and show it off.” – Ezra Silverton from 9thSphere.com
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