SEO News

Background to new gTLDs

The background to new TLDs makes fairly heavy reading. Most of the problems have surrounded new generic TLDs (gTLDs), for example Amazon’s application for ‘.book’.

These new gTLDs were introduced in 2012 and 2013, and you can read all the heavy detail about the bid process on ICANN’s Wiki (ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a private not-for-profit).

Incidentally, the most bids were put in by Google (101), Amazon (79) and Microsoft (11), but non-tech giants like L’Oreal were also in the mix.

Brand protection

Some of the controversy around new gTLDs has involved concern from brands that want to protect their name from appearing in the URL of new domains, particularly unflattering ones.

Would brands feel pressured to buy ‘brandname.word’, to stop others from taking them?

Believe it or not, one of these controversial new domains is .sucks, which is charging a premium for brands to snap up their own brand.sucks.

You can read the full background on that interesting gTLD in a detailed Search Marketing Land article.

Or go to its website and view the most bizarre video on the internet with Ralph Nader.

Is the fuss dying down?

According to World Trademark Review it appears that, despite this controversy, brands have not changed their domain enforcement strategies.

Its study published in April 2016 showed that 60.5% of companies haven’t changed policy in light of new gTLDs.

The question is, does that mean brands are unprepared? That’s a debate for another post.

Let’s look at some brand TLDs, a slightly different kettle of fish.

Brand TLDs 

Brand TLDs seem more straightforward and represent 34% of new TLDs applied for. Companies can’t snap up brand TLDs just to sell them on.

There was initial uncertainty about search performance but Google has since confirmed that there’s no reason to fear brand TLDs, though they don’t offer inherent SEO advantage.

1. BMW

BMW celebrated its centenary by looking forward to the next 100 years on this website at next100.bmw.

Here, the advantage is pretty much solely one of brand image, but brand TLDs do allow companies to create lots of second-level domains for campaigns and products.

To some extent, this makes marketing easier. Think finance.bmw, etc. – shorter and more memorable URLs.

Consumers can often be confused by TLDs (do I need .com or .co.uk?), so this brand TLD may also offer assurance to the customer.

2. Barclays

In May 2015, Barclays announced TLDs of .barclays and .barclaycard.

Online banking isn’t carried on this new brand TLD, but it’s easy to see how security could be one advantage of using .barclays.

3. Sky

Sky is a good example of a business creating shorter, memorable URLs by using a brand TLD.

For example, q.sky currently redirects to http://www.sky.com/shop/tv/sky-q/overview/.

Whether this will just be for marketing purposes, like custom URLs, or will eventually be used as the main domain remains to be seen.

Other companies are using brand TLD redirects, too. Bing redirects search.bing to bing.com.

4. CERN

CERN is another example of a new TLD being used for branding purposes, but also presumably to offer simple flexibility when it comes to creating second-level domains in future.

5. Google

Our final example is a bit of a meta one.

Google has registry.google, where it promotes access to new gTLDs that it has successfully applied for.

Other registars can partner with Google here, to sell these domains.

Look down the list and you can immediately see things of interest to many brands, whether or not they have their own brand TLD already.

For more advantages of using a branded TLD, read: Brand TLDs: five potential benefits.

Know more about TLDs than me? – why not leave a comment below.

Background to new gTLDs

The background to new TLDs makes fairly heavy reading. Most of the problems have surrounded new generic TLDs (gTLDs), for example Amazon’s application for ‘.book’.

These new gTLDs were introduced in 2012 and 2013, and you can read all the heavy detail about the bid process on ICANN’s Wiki (ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a private not-for-profit).

Incidentally, the most bids were put in by Google (101), Amazon (79) and Microsoft (11), but non-tech giants like L’Oreal were also in the mix.

Brand protection

Some of the controversy around new gTLDs has involved concern from brands that want to protect their name from appearing in the URL of new domains, particularly unflattering ones.

Would brands feel pressured to buy ‘brandname.word’, to stop others from taking them?

Believe it or not, one of these controversial new domains is .sucks, which is charging a premium for brands to snap up their own brand.sucks.

You can read the full background on that interesting gTLD in a detailed Search Marketing Land article.

Or go to its website and view the most bizarre video on the internet with Ralph Nader.

Is the fuss dying down?

According to World Trademark Review it appears that, despite this controversy, brands have not changed their domain enforcement strategies.

Its study published in April 2016 showed that 60.5% of companies haven’t changed policy in light of new gTLDs.

The question is, does that mean brands are unprepared? That’s a debate for another post.

Let’s look at some brand TLDs, a slightly different kettle of fish.

Brand TLDs 

Brand TLDs seem more straightforward and represent 34% of new TLDs applied for. Companies can’t snap up brand TLDs just to sell them on.

There was initial uncertainty about search performance but Google has since confirmed that there’s no reason to fear brand TLDs, though they don’t offer inherent SEO advantage.

1. BMW

BMW celebrated its centenary by looking forward to the next 100 years on this website at next100.bmw.

Here, the advantage is pretty much solely one of brand image, but brand TLDs do allow companies to create lots of second-level domains for campaigns and products.

To some extent, this makes marketing easier. Think finance.bmw, etc. – shorter and more memorable URLs.

Consumers can often be confused by TLDs (do I need .com or .co.uk?), so this brand TLD may also offer assurance to the customer.

2. Barclays

In May 2015, Barclays announced TLDs of .barclays and .barclaycard.

Online banking isn’t carried on this new brand TLD, but it’s easy to see how security could be one advantage of using .barclays.

3. Sky

Sky is a good example of a business creating shorter, memorable URLs by using a brand TLD.

For example, q.sky currently redirects to http://www.sky.com/shop/tv/sky-q/overview/.

Whether this will just be for marketing purposes, like custom URLs, or will eventually be used as the main domain remains to be seen.

Other companies are using brand TLD redirects, too. Bing redirects search.bing to bing.com.

4. CERN

CERN is another example of a new TLD being used for branding purposes, but also presumably to offer simple flexibility when it comes to creating second-level domains in future.

5. Google

Our final example is a bit of a meta one.

Google has registry.google, where it promotes access to new gTLDs that it has successfully applied for.

Other registars can partner with Google here, to sell these domains.

Look down the list and you can immediately see things of interest to many brands, whether or not they have their own brand TLD already.

For more advantages of using a branded TLD, read: Brand TLDs: five potential benefits.

Know more about TLDs than me? – why not leave a comment below.

Posted by MiriamEllis

Why proper onboarding matters

Imagine getting three months in on a Local SEO contract before realizing that your client’s storefront is really his cousin’s garage. From which he runs two other “legit” businesses he never mentioned. Or that he neglected to mention the reviews he bought last year. Worse yet, he doesn’t even know that buying reviews is a bad thing.

The story is equally bad if you’re diligently working to build quality unique content around a Chicago client’s business in Wicker Park but then realize their address (and customer base) is actually in neighboring Avondale.

What you don’t know will hurt you. And your clients.

A hallmark of the professional Local SEO department or agency is its dedication to getting off on the right foot with a new client by getting their data beautifully documented for the whole team from the start. At various times throughout the life of the contract, your teammates and staff from complementary departments will be needing to access different aspects of a client’s core NAP, known challenges, company history, and goals.

Having this information clearly recorded in shareable media is the key to both organization and collaboration, as well as being the best preventative measure against costly data-oriented mistakes. Clear and consistent data play vital roles in Local SEO. Information must not only be gathered, but carefully verified with the client.

This article will offer you a working Client Discovery Questionnaire, an Initial Discovery Phone Call Script, and a useful Location Data Spreadsheet that will be easy for any customer to fill out and for you to then use to get those listings up to date. You’re about to take your client discovery process to awesome new heights!

Why agencies don’t always get onboarding right

Lack of a clearly delineated, step-by-step onboarding process increases the potential for human error. Your agency’s Local SEO manager may be having allergies on Monday and simply forget to ask your new client if they have more than one website, if they’ve ever purchased reviews, or if they have direct access to their Google My Business listings. Or they could have that information and forget to share it when they jump to a new agency.

The outcomes of disorganized onboarding can range from minor hassles to disastrous mistakes.

Minor hassles would include having to make a number of follow-up phone calls to fill in holes in a spreadsheet that could have been taken care of in a single outreach. It’s inconvenient for all teammates when they have to scramble for missing data that should have been available at the outset of the project.

Disastrous mistakes can stem from a failure to fully gauge the details and scope of a client’s holdings. Suddenly, a medium-sized project can take on gigantic proportions when the agency learns that the client actually has 10 mini-sites with duplicate content on them, or 10 duplicate GMB listings, or a series of call tracking numbers around the web.

It’s extremely disheartening to discover a mountain of work you didn’t realize would need to be undertaken, and the agency can end up having to put in extra uncompensated time or return to the client to renegotiate the contract. It also leads to client dissatisfaction.

Setting correct client expectations is completely dependent on being able to properly gauge the scope of a project, so that you can provide an appropriate timeline, quote, and projected benchmarks. In Local, that comes down to documenting core business information, identifying past and present problems, and understanding which client goals are achievable. With the right tools and effective communication, your agency will be making a very successful start to what you want to be a very successful project.

Professional client discovery made simple

There’s a lot you want to learn about a new client up front, but asking (and answering) all those questions right away can be grueling. Not to mention information fatigue, which can make your client give shorter and shorter answers when they feel like they’ve spent enough time already. Meanwhile your brain reaches max capacity and you can’t use all that valuable information because you can’t remember it.

To prevent such a disaster, we recommend dividing your Local SEO discovery process into a questionnaire to nail down the basics, a follow-up phone call to help you feel out some trickier issues, and a CSV to gather the location data. And we’ve created templates to get you started…

Client Discovery Questionnaire

Use our Local SEO Client Discovery Questionnaire to understand your client’s history, current organization, and what other consultants they might also be working with. We’ve annotated each question in the Google Doc template to help you understand what you can learn and potential pitfalls to look out for.

If you want to make collecting and preserving your clients’ answers extra easy, use Google Forms to turn that questionnaire into a form like this:

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You can even personalize the graphic, questions, and workflow to suit your brand.

Client Discovery Phone Script

Once you’ve received your client’s completed questionnaire and have had time to process the responses and do any necessary due diligence (like using our Check Listings tool to check how aggregators currently display their information), it’s time to follow up on the phone. Use our annotated Local SEO Client Discovery Phone Script to get you started.

No form necessary this time, because you’ll be asking the client verbally. Be sure to pay attention to the client’s tone of voice as they answer and refer to the notes under each question to see what you might be in for.

Location Data CSV

Sometimes the hardest part of Local SEO is getting all the location info letter-perfect. Make that easier by having the client input all those details into your copy of the Location Data Spreadsheet.

Then use the File menu to download that document as a CSV.

You’ll want to proof this before uploading it to any data aggregators. If you’re working with Moz Local, the next step is an easy upload of your CSV. If you’re working with other services, you can always customize your data collection spreadsheet to meet their standards.

Keep up to date on any business moves or changes in hours by designing a data update form like this one from SEER and periodically reminding your client contact to use it.

Why mutual signals of commitment really matter

There are two sides to every successful client project: one half belongs to the agency and the other to the company it serves. The attention to detail your agency displays via clean, user-friendly forms and good phone sessions will signal your professionalism and commitment to doing quality work. At the same time, the willingness of the client to take the necessary time to fill out these documents and have these conversations signals their commitment to receiving value from their investment.

It’s not unusual for a new client to express some initial surprise when they realize how many questions you’re asking them to answer. Past experience may even have led them to expect half-hearted, sloppy work from other SEO agencies. But, what you want to see is a willingness on their part to share everything they can about their company with you so that you can do your best work.

Anecdotally, I’ve fully refunded the down payments of a few incoming clients who claimed they couldn’t take the time to fill out my forms, because I detected in their unwillingness a lack of genuine commitment to success. These companies have, fortunately, been the exception rather than the rule for me, and likely will be for your agency, too.

It’s my hope that, with the right forms and a commitment to having important conversations with incoming clients at the outset, the work you undertake will make your Local team top agency and client heroes!

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