Companies Battle For Digital Marketing Landscape (Localization Is The New Frontier)

It's no secret that New York is one of the best locations in US to launch a new venture, given its robust startup ecosystems. Startups always seek publicity but existing companies have an equal need to gain constant exposure, especially online. Increasingly many companies are using city domains to stake out their digital presence. The New York City (.nyc) is new on the scene, and is one of the most popular domains out there, since New York's top industries -- finance, media, telecom, advertising, real estate, and tech -- ascribe value, define culture, and drive popularity.

Since the domain itself is only three letters long, its concision makes it an attractive buy for any New York City startup, whether for a main site, or for a memorable marketing campaign. In addition, outsider companies looking to do business here are looking for an alternative to the exorbitantly priced .com. that will also have major SEO value.

Ranking high on Google is a key priority for both startups and businesses, as it helps them increase traffic and traction, as well as acquire customers for free. There are strong indicators that .nyc domains allow businesses to target NYC customers with marketing campaigns, using a memorable and very clean sounding name for a fraction of the .com price.

Millennials and venture capitalists alike are increasingly looking locally for new experiences and new investment opportunities -- the common refrain "everything is here" holds even stronger in the 21st century. For both types of people, localization is key. But the emphasis here is on the investor, who wants not only companies with hip new ideas, but those that will last as well.

So increasingly, for companies of all stages and locations, the .nyc domain is a long-term marketing investment. It showcases companies' connection to New York City and its iconic status, and signals to investors that companies with this domain are on the cutting edge, and here to stay.

"With the public launch of .nyc, we broke ground on a new type of real estate in New York City - a unique digital space created for New Yorkers and by New Yorkers." Mayor Bill de Blasio said, ".nyc has become a thriving online community where small businesses, organizations and entrepreneurs across the five boroughs are prospering."
Mayor Bill de Blasio. New York City Mayor

Companies are flocking to the New York City domain for both digital exposure to the NYC market and coverage as new, but savvy, entities. Being a New Yorker has high intrinsic value, as well as high business value, and many feel that working in New York is a highly valuable experience. Outsider companies are taking note. A Google search for "nyc domain names" yields what is essentially all advertising and marketing results -- New York domains are "premium", and "exclusively for New Yorkers." Heard of upgrade.nyc? It's a digital marketplace solely concerned with helping companies get with the eponymous .nyc domain, showing the value of these domains isn't just momentary glitter: It's growing.

One might wonder what the big deal is -- why would any company forego any opportunity to register as a .com, the most popular domain type out there? The answer: .com domains are either all gone or exorbitantly priced. The average three letter .com sells for over $ 100,000! Thus the market for these short .nyc domains is robust. To prove this, as with everything, follow the money. Last week shows domainnamewire.com, an OwnIt.nyc domain name registry auction topped $70,000, with RealEstate.NYC selling highest for $21,300.

Not surprising: Real estate is everything in New York City, and, the website notes, "the numbers would have been higher if .nyc ownership wasn't restricted." (As an aside, also proving the struggle for housing is real here, Apartments.nyc came at a close second, selling for $16,155!)

Having .nyc in the domain title gives added meaning to the domain over .com, allowing for a more clean and precise name targeting a specific audience which ranks better on Google. In addition, the NYC government is fully behind .nyc, and constantly uses it to promote city wide projects, such as MadeInNYFashion.nyc, where they spent $5 million on marketing it all across the city this past Fall.

"The .nyc domain is the ideal top-level domain for NYC-focused businesses and communities. The domain says it all, and serves as an inherent branding device,"
Justin Cina, Marketing Director at Gust.com and Digital.NYC.

For foreign companies looking to stake their roots here, the domain name is even more valuable: the top .nyc domain, outlier.nyc, though headquartered in Brooklyn, showcases German models and German fashion labels. This shows that though only NYC-based companies can buy the domain, those lucky enough to do business with them can share in the value of American purchasing power and the power of great branding with a clean and short .nyc domain.

Companies native to New York and steeped in its markets are taking advantage of this. NYC-based digital agency NeedGrowth has achieved remarkable growth for a wide variety of companies using .nyc and other domains as one of its key tools for growing followership, marketing presence and search engine optimization (SEO), and companies themselves. Concerning search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and many others, shorter and location specific domain names increase the ranking of websites in search results, resulting in great ROI (return on investment) for companies..

"A lot of people still haven't realized the SEO power behind the .nyc domain."
Dmitry Dragilev, SEO Expert

How to gauge popularity? Alexa.com, the definitive website popularity ranking clearinghouse, determines website popularity by rank, reach, and page views per million data based on global 1-month averages. On average, NYC domains regularly rank in the top 350,000 websites on the internet, giving the .nyc domain a high ROI in terms of page ranking. Of course, higher page ranks increase inbound website traffic, which in turn increases the customer retention percentage a company's website will bring. In terms of marketing, this is gold to companies like MageMojo, whose digital marketing was handled by NeedGrowth to triple the company's growth.

Another example of this kind of marketing lies in redirection. Postcard, a localized social app that shows people where their friends are and where to have fun with them, has utilized uncover.nyc as a memorable call to action and easy to remeber link shortener from which searchers and prospective users can be redirected to their site. As a rule, the better a company can use redirecting links to their parent website, the higher their customer pageviews, clicks, and retention, helping companies like MageMojo and Postcard increase their overall SEO and sales by double-digit, if not triple-digit, percentages.

For foreign companies, therefore, this is not just gold, but necessary going into 2017, where web traffic is the new standard-bearer for customer retention and sales, and a digital presence is everything.

The .nyc domain is the latest digital tool that companies all over the world are using to market their products in New York City, increase their customer base, sell their products, and capitalize on the purchasing power of New Yorkers. It's not to be taken lightly by any New York-based savvy marketing expert, and is becoming the gold standard for web marketing in the Big Apple.