Don’t risk losing visibility, clients, and goodwill with your online audiences and search engines. Act fast and secure your firm’s .au version of your domain name before it becomes available to the general public.
Establishing a strong and trustworthy online presence for your firm is essential. Trust is usually at the core of many purchase decisions for accounting buyers. And when it comes to an online search, that trust can simply start with a trusted domain.
Enter the new .au direct domain name for Australian firms.
The Domain Administration (auDA) has launched the .au direct domain names in Australia. This new development offers shorter, more memorable domain names for any Australian business.
These simpler domain names will end in ‘.au’ rather than ‘.com.au’, ‘.net.au’, ‘.org.au’, etc.
While the top-level domains such as .com are easily recognised on a global scale, the .au extension helps firms appeal to the market on a more local level. This is very similar to how .sg is for Singapore, and .eu is for the European Union. It’s a country code top-level domain specific to Australia.
What does this new category of domain names mean for you and what should you do about it? Here’s everything you need to know.
Why you need to secure a ‘.au’ domain name
Protect your brand from cybercriminals
Registering the new domain name category for your firm helps secure your brand from opportunistic cybercriminals who might impersonate your firm to conduct fraudulent cyber activities. If clients have come to trust your online presence, your content, and digital communications, the last thing you want are cybersquatters tarnishing your reputation.
It’s a mark of trust
As we stated before, building trust in online audiences is vital to influencing buying decisions. Securing a .au domain is a stamp of authenticity within the local market.
It will boost your online search ranking
A .au domain will prompt search engines about your firm’s address, meaning your website will see more favourable rankings for local searches over firms running the .com domain.
It’s uncommon for an Australian business owner to seek accounting services from firms outside of Australia. However, firms with a .au domain extension will have more ranking power than those without it and will increase their overall visibility in search results.
Who can get it?
Firms with an existing namespace domain – like .com.au or .net.au – can apply for priority status to register their exact match in the .au form.
So if you have a .com.au domain name (e.g. myfirmname.com.au), and have an Australian presence (official documentation that connects you to Australia, for example, an ABN/ACN), you are eligible to get a .au direct extension for your domain.
Check out the documents you can use on the auDA website.
Be quick!
You will have until 20 September 2022 before the .au domains become available for the general population to purchase. By this date, anyone will be able to register the .au domain for their business, irrespective of whether they had another domain variation of it previously.
Secure your .au domain before someone else does!
Do I change my domain to .au now?
The .au domain complements your existing .com.au domain and is in no way meant to replace it. If your firm has an existing .com.au and .net.au domain, keep these in place and add the .au to your domain registrar accounts for safety. Changing to the .au domain will not have much impact on the performance of your online presence if you already hold these other 2 Australian domains.
Practice + Pixels acquired our .au domain practiceandpixels.au a few months ago, but we don’t intend on changing our primary website domain to .au (not right away, anyway). We have, however, set up a redirect so anytime someone searches practiceandpixels.au, they will land on our website at practiceandpixels.com.au.
However, if your firm is currently using the .com domain, and you do not use the .com.au domain, we recommend you make the switch immediately if you operate within Australia only.
Head over to your domain registrar (e.g. GoDaddy, Crazy Domains) and secure your .au domain before the 20th of September.
Get your trusted domain today
The introduction of the .au domain is perhaps one of the most significant innovations since the launch of .com.au in 1986.
Register the .au domain name for your firm today to help secure your digital presence and prevent it from getting used by cybercriminals to perform deceitful online activities.
You can learn more about this on the auDA website.
The Practice + Pixels team are here to assist if you have further questions. Send us a message today or call us directly at 1300 509 977.
