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Top Alternative Domain Extensions for Startups and Businesses - DailyBlogTips

Top Alternative Domain Extensions for Startups and Businesses - DailyBlogTips


Top Alternative Domain Extensions for Startups and Businesses

Posted: 22 Jul 2015 05:03 AM PDT

Domain .com is one of the most popular domains today. The name of this domain is derived from the word "commercial", since its original purpose was for it to be used by commercial organizations. Eventually, its purpose has been changed and today also used by schools and private individuals as well. There are also many other domains that are quite popular today and are used instead of .com. Here are some of the mostly used alternative domains for bloggers and startups.

.co

.co domain is one of the most frequently used alternatives to .com. It is assigned to Colombia. This domain is recognized by Google as a global domain extension. The very popular and memorable name is an advantage of this domain. It is especially popular among tech startups, for example Vine (vine.co) or 500 Startups (500.co). You can get this domain on their official website.

.me

.me is the top-level domain for Montenegro. It replaced domains that previously existed in Yugoslavia (.yu) and Serbia and Montenegro (.cg.yu). Montenegro was later assigned .me domain by International Organization for Standardization. Four years after its appearance, the domain .me had more than 320.000 purchases which made him the fastest-selling top-level domain ever. It became very popular because of its name. There are many companies that used "me" in this domain in an interesting way. We can take a look at interesting examples of websites such as sync.me, join.me or ask.me. You can register for .me at domain.me.

.io

.io exists since 1997 and it is the top-level domain for British Indian Ocean Territory. It was not used until 1998 when Yahoo.inc registered the domainyahoo.io. Its popularity has been growing ever since it was used for the first time. You do not have to be registered in British Indian Ocean Territory if you want to use this domain. The availability of .io domains is the reason why this domain is so popular. While many .com domains are already taken, there are many .io domains that are available.

.fm

. FM is the top-level domain of the Federated States of Micronesia. It was originally designed for companies from this nation, but because of its name it became one of the most popular domains in the world. Abbreviation FM is associated with radio stations and that is why this domain is most frequently used for streaming audio websites. For example, Last.fm is one of the most popular social music website that uses this domain. Check out dot.fm if you want to get this domain.

.nu

This is another domain which gained in popularity because of its name. It is assigned to the island state of Niue but is mostly used by Danish, Swedish, Dutch and Belgian websites because in those languages "nu" is used for the word "now". Because of the phonetic similarity between those two words, this domain is also used by many websites from English-speaking countries. An interesting example of the use of this domain is the Dutch website waarbenjij.nu, which stands for whereareyou.now. This domain can be acquired at https nunames.nu.

.la

This domain is assigned to the country of Laos but it gained its popularity by the websites from Los Angeles. Even though it is mostly used by the websites from Los Angeles, there is no official association between this domain and the United States. This domain is perfect for websites like ilove.la and similar. In addition, it is used by the French websites since "la" stands for "there" in French. You can get this domain at www.la.

All of these domains are alternatives for .com and are very frequently used, some because of availability and some because of the name. All of them can be a much cheaper option than .com domain, but that still depends on the name of the website you choose. Therefore, if you are looking for a creative website name, try to use it in combination with one of these domains and make it sound interesting. That is how many people choose their domains. The name of the website can be used as a strong marketing tool and should be chosen very carefully.

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ProBlogger: 31DBBB Day 22 Challenge: Pay Special Attention to a Reader

ProBlogger: 31DBBB Day 22 Challenge: Pay Special Attention to a Reader

Link to @ProBlogger

31DBBB Day 22 Challenge: Pay Special Attention to a Reader

Posted: 21 Jul 2015 01:00 PM PDT

Today’s podcast episode is all about your audience, and how to make them feel valued.

If there’s one way to build a better blog, it’s taking care of the people who take the time to read and engage with you, therefore creating a space that both you and they love. And one way to take care of those people is to not only tell them they’re valued, like we did on day five by emailing them, but by actually showcasing them publicly. Tell them why you appreciate them, loud and clear!

In the early days, I regularly gave two pieces of advice: “make your readers famous”, and “love your readers to death”. Today your challenge is to do just that, and I’m here to tell you how. I also explain how it has a three-pronged impact on you and your blog and a few ways I’ve gone about publicly valuing my readers and the effect it has had.

As always, feel free to share on Twitter or here in the comments how you’re doing with the challenge – can you believe we’re past the three-week mark now?!

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Click here to listen to day 22 of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog series on the ProBlogger Podcast. 

Further Reading:

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

31DBBB Day 22 Challenge: Pay Special Attention to a Reader

The post 31DBBB Day 22 Challenge: Pay Special Attention to a Reader appeared first on @ProBlogger.