Should healthcare sites be .com.co.uk.biz.net.health
Does it matter if your clinic is .co.uk, .org, .net, or something else? And does it actually even matter? Well, I'm Geoff, the Healthcare SEO, and today that's what I'm going to be talking about.
Now, in my opinion, it doesn't matter that much, but having said that, I haven't actually tested it, so I can't say for certain. But before you decide whether you're a .com or .co.uk, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind.
If you're a clinic or a hospital and you're expecting to embrace health tourism at some point and go international, then it's probably best that you get a .com.
The reason for that is because .com is pretty much the global default, and a lot of people will just assume that your site is .com, especially if they're in places like Australia, Canada, the USA, or other English-speaking areas.
However, if you're only expecting to ever serve one particular country, it's better to get the global top-level domain (TLD) for that country.
For example, if you're based in the UK and you think that your clinic or hospital will only ever serve the UK, then it's better to get the .co.uk extension.
The reason for that is because Google is actually on the record as saying that if you have your country's extension at the end, you're more likely to rank within that country.
So, for example, if you are based in London and your web name ends with .co.uk, Google is more likely to rank you in the UK.
Now, there is actually a third option as well, which is to get a branded domain extension, so instead of being .com or .co.uk, you could have something like .health or .healthcare.
However, there isn’t solid evidence that these branded extensions actually help you rank, unlike the country TLDs, like .co.uk, which will help you rank.
So I would personally advise staying away from branded extensions. Another thing to note is that they can be quite expensive. For example, if you wanted to be knee-replacement.health, it could cost around £1,000.
That’s quite an investment for something which might not help you much, and on top of that, some people actually say that these types of extensions can look kind of spammy or cheap.
Many nefarious websites tend to use these more unusual extensions, so it's not something I would recommend at this point.
I am currently testing out which types of domain names work best for private health clinics. If you're interested in finding the results of those tests, sign up for my email newsletter, and I’ll let you know as soon as they're available. Here you go...
https://healthcare-seo.co.uk
That's it for now. I'm Geoff, the Healthcare SEO, and I look forward to speaking to you soon. Take care, bye.