Here’s Why .com Is The Ultimate Domain Extension to Get for Your Blog

Choosing a blog name is one thing, but what about the domain extension?

Also called top-level domain (TLD), this is the last part of a domain name. 

A reader just emailed me asking whether domain extensions different than .com are a good idea and if it’s SEO-friendly. I have a thing or two to say about it, and as it’s a topic I’ve never covered on the blog, I thought why not write a post about it!

I’ve been building blogs for a decade now, and picked a .com domain 99% of the time (not saying 100% because I might not remember every niche site I’ve started and then left behind). 

Just the other day, actually, I started a new site (after testing the idea with a TikTok account first), and the .com version of it was not available.

So instead of choosing another extension, I went for a similar version of the blog name I had in mind. That’s how serious I am about it, and dedicated to the most widely known ending for a website URL.

With this article, I want to inspire you to always go for the .com version of the website you want to start (or .net if necessary). 

Here’s why:

Why .com is The Still The Best Domain Extension 

Almost half of the websites have it.

I’m not one to follow the crowd, but for some things there’s a reason why most businesses go for them. The .com URL ending is one of them, and nearly half of the websites have chosen that.

It stands for ‘commercial’, and the .com bubble most likely got its name because people associate the Internet with websites ending in .com. That’s how popular it is.

Which brings us to the next point.

It builds trust.

As a result of its popularity, the .com domain ending also means that readers will take your site seriously.

It was initially used for businesses, but now everyone can get a site ending this way, which I think is pretty cool. In general, we live in the best possible times to start an online business, and even treat it as a hobby first until you make it profitable, after which you can officially register it and start paying taxes.

You want to build trust with your website, both with search engines and visitors (the moment they land on it). There are many elements of your blog that do it and can create a good first impression, and your URL is one of them. That means a blog name that doesn’t sound spammy or anything like that, which contains HTTPS, and which ends in something people trust.

Short and easy to remember. 

Another reason this is the most popular top-level domain is that it’s memorable. 

People may remember your name or brand name and type it to go to your site. Their first assumption will be that it ends in .com.

You wouldn’t want them to get a 401 page (an error meaning the page can’t be accessed), or land on someone else’s website. 

A .com suffix reduces the chance of typos. That’s good for branding.

Some businesses have a .net or .co extension but have also purchased the .com version of their site and have redirected it to the original URL.

Potentially better for SEO.

Due to its trust and credibility, it’s believed that this domain suffix is also the most SEO-friendly one.

I said ‘potentially’ simply because if you do your job right as a blogger, you can rank any website well and monetize it.

Future-proof your brand.

We should start a blog and a business with a big vision – that it will grow, it will turn into a full-time venture, and it will get attention online. With that attention, though, competition might arise, as well as people trying to copy your brand.

That’s why securing your name with a .com domain as well as creating profiles on socials using that name is important.

Not tied to a location. 

If you – like me – are doing business globally and serving people everywhere with your content, then a .com domain extension is the preferred one.

If you’re in the UK, though, target locals and truly don’t want any traffic from outside, then another TLD might work better for you, especially for SEO purposes and for building trust (such as .co.uk).

It comes in handy in case you want to sell your blog.

You might not be thinking about that now, but it’s possible that you decide to sell your blog one day. Then the .com TLD will make it more appealing to buyers.

The only downsides

It’s only fair that I mention the disadvantages of using .com for your new blog, but I can only think of two – availability and pricing.

In terms of availability: while that wasn’t the case 10 years ago when I was starting my blogging journey, now there are so many websites and most of them end in .com, that your blog name might not be available with this extension.

It happens, and as I mentioned above, it happened to me just the other day. But it’s not such a big deal, and you can either stick to .com but pick a similar blog name, or change the domain extension. 

In both cases, if you do everything else right (content creation, SEO, email marketing, monetization, blog traffic, branding, etc.), you can turn that site into a successful blogging business.

As for pricing, the .com top-level domains will cost more, but still the price is pretty doable and it’s for a whole year.

Final words

So that’s my take on it. Let me know what you think. And if you have another domain extension, how’s that working for you and why did you go for it?