In this article, you’ll discover a key element of your Web site and how you can use it to drive traffic to your site from offline sources. What is this “basic element” of your site, you ask? It’s your domain name – your business’ virtual address.
To figure out why a business’ domain name is important to its Web site’s offline promotions, a little background into domain names is in order. To begin with, there are two main classes of domain names, gTLDs (general Top Level Domains) and ccTLDs (country code Top Level Domains). The seven original gTLDs are .com, .net, .org, .mil, .edu, .gov, and .int. As of the writing of this article, seven new gTLDs are in the process of being launched by ICANN, the governing body of TLDs. They are .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. The gTLDs were developed to represent specific types of entities, such as commercial organizations (.com), educational institutions (.edu), or cooperatives (.coop). The ccTLDs were developed to represent entities from specific regions, such as the United States (.us), France (.fr), or Japan (.jp).
In most cases, if you find the right...