Advice/thoughts re TLD

Lulu

Junior Member
Hi
I'm putting together a site for a creative arts group I'm involved with. I'm completely new to web design but very enthusiastic! We are all UK based and we will not be selling our work online, just want people to view it and get in touch.

All TLD permutations of our name are available and we've narrowed it down to .com, .org or .co.uk.

We are thinking of .com as it's universal but I don't fully understand the implications in terms of search engines etc. I wondered what people on here, with more experience and knowledge, think?

Any help would be really appreciated.
 
If you're target audience is in the UK, get the .co.uk. I know Google at least uses the TLD as a means of assessing how relevant your content is to a region.

Read more.

If the funds are there, I'd register them all and redirect all traffic to the .co.uk domain. This'll stop anyone else having a domain name similar to yours and may catch the odd visitor who's typed in a slightly wrong address.

Edit: By 'register them all' I mean I'd register the ones you've narrowed it down to, not literally all permutations of the domain name!
 
If it's SEO you're not sure about there are plenty of articles out there about it.

Really makes your site rank higher is a mixture of things; good use of keywords in both title and content, good quality content & quality link backs. No one really knows the formula for what actually counts as google doesnt release all its info on this.

Really as long as it's a visually compelling site and interactive, giving time the site could be a success. Check out other sites that may be similar to what you want so you can get an idea of what it takes.

Good luck
 
Thanks for your post and link, James. We may get visitors from overseas, but it's uncertain at the moment. Unfortunately, we don't have funds to buy all 3 domains.

Thanks also to Ben. I've read quite a lot about the subject, but I'm on such a steep learning curve, it's become a bit mind boggling! I've also checked out other, similar, sites. They are a mix of .com, .org and.co.uk. It has been useful in terms of checking keywords etc.
 
No problem, Lulu. Probably should've mentioned that the relevent part of that link was a fair bit down the page, though the whole article does give quite a good overview of SEO. That whole section of Google Support is pretty good in all honesty.

Seems like your looking into it all properly anyways which is great. As you're limited to the one domain I'd still go for the .co.uk domain. It makes most sense as you are all located in the UK. It will also indicate to any visitors that you are UK based.
 
Thanks, James. I have to agree re Google - I've used their webmaster pages a lot! It's been really helpful in terms of things to think about, stuff to be put the <head> section etc. I've also been trawling various design forums such as this one and others which has been helpful as well.
 
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