Globalisation through optimisation
Do you remember how, in the mid 1990's, when companies were buying the domain names for their online businesses, there were several distinct attitudes to the URL suffix? On the one hand were companies who insisted on having a .com suffix to take advantage of the global business opportunities, while on the other were British businesses who had no intention of trading internationally, and were happy with a .co.uk web address. Then there was a third group, those who would have liked a .com URL but came too late to the global domain marketplace and had to settle for .co.uk. And let's not forget the fourth group, the companies who created a locally-specific URL for each country in which they were already doing, or planning to do, business.
It would be interesting to see whether the companies who chose a .com URL have indeed become global e-businesses and likewise, if those who settled for .co.uk, either by choice or necessity, have remained focused on the local market.
The answer is undoubtedly a bit of both. By the nature of business, there will be some .coms who have never traded outside their country of origin, while other, sprightlier companies will have refused to let their horizons be limited by a .co.uk URL and gone global.
But what this demonstrates is that there's no physical barrier to building a global e-business. The Internet is itself an international medium and if you have a web site you already have a global e-business by default. The difference is simply one of practice. If you want to increase your revenue in overseas markets and you have the local resources, support services and distribution network in place, you can.
Global search engine optimisation how to...
