International domain to expand operations in Latin America
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 6:44 am
An international domain can be the key your business needs to achieve global success. Don't be afraid to grow!
Everything is going swimmingly. Your business is growing rapidly locally, then it takes big steps to expand across the country and then the question arises: should you open operations in other countries?
While there are many logistics and regionalization issues that influence the correct execution of expanding your brand to other territories, having a very clear strategy at the digital level, and specifically for your website, is crucial.
Why choose an international domain?
Today I want to share with you 4 reasons why having an international domain to expand your operations in Latin America can be a great idea:
Think big, think regional
In some of the companies I have worked for, which have a presence across the globe, the question of structure is crucial. For any digital strategy, it is essential to be able to correctly divide how your efforts will be focused.
If you are going to expand operations in Latin America, you will need to have a page that is the hub or umbrella for the rest and from where visits can be redirected depending on the country your users enter. Think of it like a building with departments: the department is the central location (sites with a global domain), the floors function as divisions (sites with regional domains) and the departments are the smaller units (sites with domains for countries). Domains such as .la , .lat or .latino will allow you to give your company a greater presence and clarity to your visitors.
Understand the regions you will expand into
While it may sound tempting to open operations in every single Latin American country, the reality is that this feat is something that only a few global brands can achieve.
Significant costs such as physical location, personnel, resources, among nepal business email list others, can make this complicated. The same is true in the virtual world.
Having a domain that covers operations in more than one country in a single location is quite normal.
For example, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Paraguay could all function as one region and one site. How about Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean? Decide which country has the most weight and focus your resources on that website, making the site navigation clear for your customers to avoid frustration.
Think local, play with SEO
The trickiest part of trying to expand digitally into any other region is entering into search engine positioning territory. Just like you, Google and every other search engine divides its operations locally.
This means that just because your page appears easily in Mexico does not guarantee that it will do so in Belize, Venezuela or other countries.
Using local domains and having sites designed and structured specifically for certain countries will help your site a lot.
If you are not sure which domain corresponds to which country, be sure to check this list from ICANN, the highest authority on the subject, to give you an idea.
Issues such as keywords that change easily from country to country should be carefully thought out in each of the contents you tropicalize.
Perhaps a product or service has not been discovered because you make an exact copy of the original site, instead of thinking about how your new customers think and search in other latitudes.
Think about the costs
If your expansion strategy includes purchasing multiple regional and local domains, costs are likely to increase. In addition to what it will cost to obtain each one, consider other factors such as data privacy for each domain and even individual security certificates or wildcards to encrypt your customers' information.
Not to mention server capacity, which will likely involve upgrading to a VPS or dedicated server. As your business and brand grow, they will become more susceptible to hacker attacks.
Try to get the best advice from your IT and Marketing team to decide which is the best strategy for your company.
With each new step your company takes outside your country, the weight of your decisions becomes increasingly strategic. Analyzing in depth which territories to explore with valuable information can make large investments of resources, both human and financial, much more optimal.
Everything is going swimmingly. Your business is growing rapidly locally, then it takes big steps to expand across the country and then the question arises: should you open operations in other countries?
While there are many logistics and regionalization issues that influence the correct execution of expanding your brand to other territories, having a very clear strategy at the digital level, and specifically for your website, is crucial.
Why choose an international domain?
Today I want to share with you 4 reasons why having an international domain to expand your operations in Latin America can be a great idea:
Think big, think regional
In some of the companies I have worked for, which have a presence across the globe, the question of structure is crucial. For any digital strategy, it is essential to be able to correctly divide how your efforts will be focused.
If you are going to expand operations in Latin America, you will need to have a page that is the hub or umbrella for the rest and from where visits can be redirected depending on the country your users enter. Think of it like a building with departments: the department is the central location (sites with a global domain), the floors function as divisions (sites with regional domains) and the departments are the smaller units (sites with domains for countries). Domains such as .la , .lat or .latino will allow you to give your company a greater presence and clarity to your visitors.
Understand the regions you will expand into
While it may sound tempting to open operations in every single Latin American country, the reality is that this feat is something that only a few global brands can achieve.
Significant costs such as physical location, personnel, resources, among nepal business email list others, can make this complicated. The same is true in the virtual world.
Having a domain that covers operations in more than one country in a single location is quite normal.
For example, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Paraguay could all function as one region and one site. How about Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean? Decide which country has the most weight and focus your resources on that website, making the site navigation clear for your customers to avoid frustration.
Think local, play with SEO
The trickiest part of trying to expand digitally into any other region is entering into search engine positioning territory. Just like you, Google and every other search engine divides its operations locally.
This means that just because your page appears easily in Mexico does not guarantee that it will do so in Belize, Venezuela or other countries.
Using local domains and having sites designed and structured specifically for certain countries will help your site a lot.
If you are not sure which domain corresponds to which country, be sure to check this list from ICANN, the highest authority on the subject, to give you an idea.
Issues such as keywords that change easily from country to country should be carefully thought out in each of the contents you tropicalize.
Perhaps a product or service has not been discovered because you make an exact copy of the original site, instead of thinking about how your new customers think and search in other latitudes.
Think about the costs
If your expansion strategy includes purchasing multiple regional and local domains, costs are likely to increase. In addition to what it will cost to obtain each one, consider other factors such as data privacy for each domain and even individual security certificates or wildcards to encrypt your customers' information.
Not to mention server capacity, which will likely involve upgrading to a VPS or dedicated server. As your business and brand grow, they will become more susceptible to hacker attacks.
Try to get the best advice from your IT and Marketing team to decide which is the best strategy for your company.
With each new step your company takes outside your country, the weight of your decisions becomes increasingly strategic. Analyzing in depth which territories to explore with valuable information can make large investments of resources, both human and financial, much more optimal.