For many North American businesspeople, the answer to the question posed by today’s blog title is an easy one. If you operate a Canadian business, you should choose a .ca for your website’s domain name. If you operate an American business, then a .com is the obvious choice. However, at MeloTel, we don’t believe the choices to be all that obvious.
As most people know, a .ca website indicates a Canadian company. But what if that Canadian company does business outside of Canada? If you own a business in Canada, but you sell your products and services to a continent-wide or even worldwide customer base, then it is a good idea to secure a .com domain name. We practice what we preach. Our website domain name is reflective of the fact that we have customers all over North America.
Why is it a good idea to register a .com domain name?
In addition to being able to reach out to a broader audience, your .com website will likely be easier to remember. After all, .com is certainly the most popularly used domain name extension in the continent. However, even if you do operate a business in Canada and only have Canadian clients, it may be wise to register your site with both a .ca and a .com extension. That way, you can protect it from being used by someone else – especially a competitor.
Why is it a good idea to register a .ca domain name?
Well, as mentioned, if you’re the owner of a Canadian business that markets its products and services specifically to a Canadian audience, a .ca website is a good choice. This immediately brands your website and the business it represents as 100% Canadian. According to the Canada Business Network, only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and businesses can register a .ca website.
As well, they reveal that research shows that the majority of Canadian consumers (74 percent) prefer to support Canadian businesses and the majority of them (64 percent) believe that Canadian businesses should have a .ca website. Evidently, Canadian businesses that specifically market their brands to a domestic audience stand to maximize profits by demonstrating their being Canadian to internet users.
“Not only is the .ca domain viewed as safe, secure and trusted by Canadian Internet users,” reports the Canada Business Network, “but research shows that Canadians are more likely to perform online transactions on .ca websites since they trust Canadian companies, know that they will be charged in Canadian dollars and that they won’t have to deal with additional taxes and duties for shipping across the border.”
How can MeloTel help you to both select and secure your domain name?
MeloTel offers Domain, Email & Web Hosting services that enable you to immediately discover if the domain name of your choosing is available or not. Our services will also help you to establish a Fortune 500 configuration. We do not share IPs and all communications are protected by encrypted SSL certificates for both incoming and outgoing mail.
We don’t claim to provide the cheapest services – you wouldn’t want them anyway. We do, however, stand by our assertion that our Domain, Email & Web Hosting services can’t be beat! For more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the Live Chat feature on our website!