This is a guest post by Suman Das of Radix – if you like the article, make sure to thank him in the comments!
Now that you’re planning to sell online, you need to create your own brand. And while WooCommerce can help you develop a slick ecommerce website, building a great brand starts with picking a great domain name.
When it comes to effective brand building and harboring customer trust, your domain name plays a crucial role. It’s the first touchpoint for your customers and helps them get an understanding of what awaits them on your website. Paid marketing campaigns and special offers can help you convert traffic quickly, but to thrive in the long run it’s essential that you build an outstanding BRAND.
Your WooCommerce website is a virtual storefront, so why not use a brand new and very relevant .STORE domain name instead of a .COM? It’s a smart way to highlight the fact that you sell something on your website… without having to explain it through your brand name.
So, here are some reasons you should consider registering a .STORE domain for your WooCommerce website.
1. Strong, Memorable Brand Name
Selecting a .STORE domain can boost your brand awareness. As a domain extension that has been crafted specifically for retail and ecommerce, .STORE clearly implies what you do and what your customers can expect on your website.
Several small businesses such as Wonder.Store, Kono.Store, TopCoat.Store use .STORE to denote their presence on the internet – while making the most of a short, memorable, relevant and intuitive brand name.
Besides, when it comes to website goals, you can use .STORE to demarcate your online storefront from your business website. For example, Emirates uses Emirates.Store for its merchandise sales, while its corporation website – which has clearly a different audience in mind – is Emirates.com
2. Offline Marketing Campaigns
A .STORE domain is an effective way for you to transcend your offline marketing efforts and conjoin it with your online presence.
How does this work? If you run an ad in the local newspaper, radio or TV channel a short, memorable .STORE domain name might help you immensely.
For example, PoloShirts.Store might be an intuitive domain name which can be either used to send users to your standalone website, that sells polo shirts, or even to redirect traffic to your “Polo Shirts” product category page. This is a smarter option instead of using a long and awkward URL such as www.poloshirtsstore.com/casual-wear/shirts/polo-shirts/.
3. SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the backbone of organic marketing and it heavily depends on the quality and number of backlinks your website has. High quality backlinks for your website are pivotal to improve your organic search rank and for this to work, the ‘anchor text’ is crucial.
For example, if your WooCommerce store is called “Lifeandstyle.store” and you repeatedly get backlinks from credible websites with anchor text “Life and Style Store” and “Lifestyle Store” instead of just “Lifestyle”, your backlink game can strengthen.
The more backlinks you get this way, the better it is for your organic search ranking. Want to know more about how new domains impact SEO? You can check out this comprehensive white paper created by Radix, the third largest new domain registry in the world.
4. Credibility and Trust
If you are just starting out, building customers’ trust should be at the forefront of your marketing agenda. Having a domain name that is simple and unique for your WooCommerce store can lend legitimacy and credibility to your business, be it for customers, partners or suppliers.
Selecting a short and brandable name on .STORE, coupled with a professional .STORE email address can do wonders for your business. If you were to come across an ecommerce website that used an awkward URL and a Gmail address, a customer might think twice before purchasing.
To make things easier for their customers and partners, enhance credibility and trust and increase their brand awareness, Nebraska-based “The Stately Shirt Company” changed their domain name from Thestatelyshirtcompany.com to Stately.Store.
Conclusion
To sum things up, a .STORE domain extension can help you build a better online brand, make your offline marketing more effective, gain more organic traffic and build trust in your target audience.
You can now get your own .STORE domain name at just $4.99 for the first year. Use coupon STORE499 at Get.store
I am just in the start stage of designing my online web store for the fourth or fifth time. I never like the caned templates and am learning WordPress with Elimentor and I am slowly understanding the program.
I am curious about the dot store and dot shop tld’s. The dot store domain is approximately $48 per year and the dot shop domains are approximately $27. What differences are there in the platforms (if any) other than the price? What advantages are there in one over the other as far as SEO. security, etc.? Thanks in advance.
No differences at all, so pick the one that sounds better to your customers
If I purchase a .store domain, will my email look the same? For example if I purchase HotCoffee.Store would my email be steve@hotcoffee.store?
Thank you.
Steve
Of course!
Thanks, Suman! Very helpful tips and a fantastic article full with detailed points. You just won a new regular reader! – Jessica
Hello Sir,
Feeling lucky that I landed on the right blog. Very informative and to the point.
I am going to launch my ecommerce store shortly. For that dot com extension is not available. Therefore, before taking dot store extension I wanted to confirm from experts like you, to be 100% sure of my decision for going to dot store extension.
Sir, still I have two points which I need to be clarified;
1. Mine ecommerce store will be a hyper type store. I mean to say that it will not sell any particular brand or brand name. All the various products will be available with the passage of time through of course categories. So, by “Brand” in your article meant the “brand name for the ecommerce website”?
2. Dot store extension will effect on page SEO or not?
I hope that you will not find my views and questions stupid.
Regards,
Hello Ali 🙂
1) Yes
2) It’s only a domain name, and domain names do not affect ranking any longer. So, on-page SEO is going to be the same. Just make sure the .COM is not an ecommerce website of a competitor and not a trademark
That’s the point! really thankful for deep sharing of your information about Branding and Marketing. Moreover I think .Store domain have diversify list of domains because mostly people go for .com .co.uk or .ca in fact you can get these kinda domain at very affordable price as you already mentioned $5/year. Amazing and thank you for sharing your experience.
Cool, thank you!