Blog domain needs to be .com

I ran across a study this morning comparing the effectiveness of .org versus .net domains for blogs. The premise being that ‘the .com extension, albeit being the best one, is most of the times taken already.’

Forget the .net or .org domains unless you are a non profit organization, in which case .org could be (not saying it is) appropriate. You need to use a .com domain.

Four quick good reasons, and there are probably 10 more.

• You can find an appropriate .com domain. Perhaps you can’t get wisconsinestateplanning.com. How about wiestateplanning.com, wiestateplanningblog.com, or wiestateplanninglaw.com? How about calling your blog a ‘report,’ ‘journal,’ or ‘monitor?’ Add that word to the end of any domain. Be creative, do not get hooked on a catchy domain that only you believe you need to have. Get over it. Content and entering into a conversation with other thought leaders in your niche is 50 times more important than a domain name.
• A ‘.com’ domain is more professional. Have you ever seen a Toyota.net or Amazon.org domain name for a strongly branded corporation?
• People will key in the .com, no matter whether you tell them you have a .net or .org domain. It’s human nature. Tell someone they need to go channel 13 on their TV, but not the regular set of channels, they need to flip to a ‘B’ set of channels. Ain’t happening.
• 85% of people key in what they are looking for in the Google tool bar or on the Google home page. Even if I am looking for ‘ESPN,’ I am much more likely to key in ‘ESPN’ in the Google tool bar and do the extra click from the Google results page, than to key in ‘ESPN’ in the url address field. Your target audience will find you so long as your blog is properly optimized.’So getting the ‘perfect domain everyone will key in is meaningless.

LexBlog is powering over 500 blogs and almost 1,500 blog authors. None, that I can recall, are sitting on a .net or .org domain. ‘.Com’ is the name of the game.