Hi, my name is Daniel Walter Scott,  and I'm a trainer here at Bring Your Own Laptop. Now, in this video we're gonna look at, uh,  local domains versus the.com. By local, I mean, um, so let's say the uk. The UK has a.co.uk as their, um, domain name,  whereas a.com would be considered an international  or a US based domain name. Now, the question you need to ask yourself is, am I selling  to the US or am I selling locally? That should answer your question, okay?

Because local domains like the.co uk rank better in their  particular countries  because it's a clear signal to Google that I intend to sell  to these people in this country. But let's say you are like me  and you have, uh, big plans to, uh, expand globally. What you can do is start with your localized country. So buy the.co uk,  but also buy a.com that you could move into later on. That's an easy process to do. Now, um, setting up some local  domains can be a bit of a pain.

Uh, if I wanted to do a.co uk  that is really easy, I could sit down. Now, five minutes later I'd have my.co uk, um,  different for setting up the.com au. What I had to do for that business is I had  to have a registered business in that country  before they'd gimme the domain name,  which can be a real big hassle. Okay? So I need a limited liability company. Then I applied to the register with proof of  that business using, uh,  what's called an a BN number in Australia.

Then they gave me the domain name. Okay? So that can be a bit of a limitation for local domains,  and there are ways around that in those countries. The easiest one is you can register your personal name  without a registered business. I could register Daniel Walter scott.com.au  and without a limited company, okay? All I have to do is prove my identity  and I can get that domain name.

Another way of skirting the rules a little bit is that,  say my Irish website, I wanted to set up the website first,  get that working, getting content, get that tracking  before I set up my business in that country. So what I was able to do was I was able  to send the register in that company, that country, uh,  notices from my Australian  and New Zealand business that use the same domain name,  or sorry, use the same business name  and, uh, explain my intent to start business on Ireland. Okay? So with that, I was able  to get the do ie without having  to do a limited business, okay? Until a little bit later. So if you can prove that you're either already trading in  that country, okay, or you're selling to people in Ireland,  or that you have strong intent to do it,  then you might be able to get the domain name without a  registered business, but that's not a guaranteed Now,  and last thing  to note is when you're gonna buy a local domain name,  and it is one of those domain names that have, um,  gatekeepers and they're a little bit harder to get a hold  of, is to use a local registrar.

Okay? So I use the local domain registrar from that country  because they'll be able to answer all those questions about  what the rules are and how they apply to you. Okay? So local is better than some  of the bigger international, uh, domain and registers. If you've got that real painful domain name to pick from.