Forum Moderators: skibum
The main site is a .co.uk but I'm wondering if more response would come from advertising the .com site instead?
e.g.
Does 'Get your widgets at widgets.com' get more response than 'Get your widgets at widgets.co.uk'?
Most TV adverts for websites state .com, but there are a few insurance sites which say 'logon to xyzinsurance.co.uk'....
The question I'm really asking is what will stand out more and encourage users to get off the couch and check out the website?
I can use either as I have both domains. Even though the widgets.co.uk is the main site, I can use widgets.com as an introduction page and then forward users to the .co.uk.
One reservation I have is that the site is well established as widgets.co.uk and if media pundits were to start talking about widgets.com it could confuse previous visitors.
For eg. the site I did with pictures of my daughter for family, no matter how many times I told them it was .co.uk they all without exception call it ---.com (some even as a 'joke' call her ----.com). I am sure the lady who owns the domain they visit is really pleased with the extra traffic and emails .. not. It got to the point where I took the site down and told them to visit my site instead. Had to put a link on my commercial .com site (the pictures are on the .org). How professional looking.
Another example, one of my clients has got many many domains. They are ..um.. regional leisure focussed .. the .com versions get 90% of the type in traffic in every case. It seems obvious that people always think .com first even if what they are looking for is very local.
For SEM though I see no difference, what matters here it seems is more the placement than the domain. I tried a split test with a adwords campaign targetted only at uk and the difference was very minor (still pro .com but not so much to make that big a difference). Unfortunately the conversion was so bad I couldn't make any claims about ROI difference.
Hope my rambling mess of a post helps in some way :OP
