What is a domain on the Internet?

If you know how to choose the right one, your digital marketing strategy will go an excellent way.

Although you do not need to be an expert designer, it is important that, for your website to be a resounding success, you take into account basic aspects such as:

• the design and architecture of your site;
• the content of your blog ;
• use of a quality hosting service ;
• SEO optimization ;
• CTAs or calls to action;
• determine metrics;
• the name of your web domain.

As you can see, this term encompasses all these important factors, but what is it? and why is it so valuable? Don’t worry, here we will teach you everything you need to know about the web domain, so keep reading!

What is a domain on the Internet?

It is the unique and unrepeatable name that is given to an Internet site so that the brands (owners of said pages) are identified in a comfortable and simple way by users and their clients .

Considered as exclusive, there will only be one company, company, organization or person with that name. To ensure this, there are organizations in charge of domains on the Internet, such as IANA and ICANN .

Why is domain important to websites?

Registering a domain on the Internet is the first step to have a presence on the web. However, with only one domain you will not be able to publish your website, since you will also need web hosting .

It is important to emphasize that by choosing and registering your domain on the Internet you will be able to create personalized email accounts that will allow you to project professionalism and gain the trust of potential customers .

As an example we will put Rock Content, our domain is rockcontent.com/es, with it we can create emails addressed to various areas, for example: egdar.higuerey@rockcontent.com .

Another important point about domains on the Internet is that they are memorizable terms and easy to remember by Internet users , because don’t you think that it is easier to remember google.com than its IP address http://172.217.10.110/?

Finally, domain names on the Internet are customizable, so they usually reflect the nature of the website , that is, if you are looking for the Hubspot company, you just have to type its name and its website will appear first with the hubspot domain .es in web search engines .

Remember that it will be much easier to find you if you choose a domain that is according to what you offer or who you are.

What is the structure of a domain?

Its structure consists of two levels. However, at the beginning there is a root domain, which is just an empty name from which the other Internet domains come out. Now, what do they consist of?

First level

This first level comes out of the root domain. These can be: .com, .mx, .org , among others.

Second level

It is the name that was chosen for the domain . In our case it is: rockcontent.

Subdomain

It is a derivative of the second level domain, which is created by adding one or more words separated by a period. The   www. it is the most common subdomain.

However, others can also be added to allow direct access to a certain section of the web page. For example, if we take the following subdomain of Teachable then it will take us to our university: university-rockcontent .teachable.com

We recommend that you use short names and keywords to create subdomains that are related to the content you want to display.

What types of domain exist?

There are three types – or extensions – of domains that you can use for your business and it will depend on what is most suitable for your organization.

Geographic domains

Also called territorial or ccTLD (Country code Top-Level Domain).

This domain is made up of two letters that are associated with the website’s country of origin . These are used to mark the location of the business. Some examples of geographic domains are:

• .ar , for Argentina;
• .br , for Brazil;
• .co , for Colombia;
• .mx , for Mexico;
• among others.

Generic Top Level Domain

Also known as gTLD (Generic Top-Level Domain)

They are the most used and common worldwide. These are not tailored to a specific country and define what the purpose of the website is . Example:

• .com , is a website for commercial use;
• .net , its meaning is network and is related to Internet service companies or also to associate a domain that already exists with the ending .com;
• .org , non-profit organization, NGO or institutions;
• .edu , is used for educational institutions;
• .info , informational site;
• .biz , business page;
• .gob , reserved exclusively for government departments and entities ;
• . thousand , its use is only for entities that belong to the Armed Forces of a country;
• among others.

Mixed or third level domains

Third-level domains are those that result after combining a gTLD domain and a ccTLD domain.

In other words, they serve the same purpose as generic domains, but are territorially limited . Then it would be:

• .com.mx , for Mexican commercial entities;
• .org.mx , referring to Mexican non-profit organizations;
• .edu.mx , consists of Mexican educational institutions;
• .gob.mx , entities of the Government of Mexico.

How do domains influence SEO?

Choosing the domain extension will depend on your objectives , since if you have a global market planned, the best thing for you is to choose a generic domain.

Remember that this type of extensions has a fairly high SEO strategic value for companies, because it does not refer to a specific country and your website will have a much greater chance of appearing in the search engine results of different countries.

Now, if your market is national, it is best to use a geographic domain because yes! Your website will be positioned much better in that country, because Google – or another search engine – will consider it as an almost exclusive domain for that region.

How to register a domain on the Internet?

Registering a domain on the Internet is very simple:

First, you must go to the website of a domain seller, such as Google Domains, and check if the name you hope to use is available.

When you know its availability, click on “register” or “buy” (it depends on where you are going to get it).

When you do, the page will ask you for some personal information such as name, address and email. At the end of this, you will have to choose your payment method.

And ready! You will already have your company’s domain registered on the Internet.

It is important that you take into account the life cycle of your domain , so you avoid losing it .

We also recommend that you look for expired domains , since this method has several advantages such as SEO positioning , its low cost, external links . It may even be that the one you want and is not available is an expired domain.

In conclusion

If you are looking for a domain for your company, do not forget that your domain must:

• differentiate;
• be brief;
• be easy to pronounce, write and remember;
• communicate something.