What does the Nominet Annual Report 2008 mean for your business?

Nominet published it's annual domain name industry report recently and whilst the majority covers domain name statistics and the UK registrar market it does include some interesting research on trust and awareness of UK domain names.

Based on their own research and a survey of 2352 people carried out by Opinion Matters the report makes the following points:

• the .co.uk domain suffix is the most trusted in the UK
• when searching for travel and entertainment information 82% of consumers from Belfast prioritise .co.uk over .com domains and 79% of consumers from Sheffield prefer .co.uk domains believing them to be local
• twice as many women as men regularly use social networking websites
• 75% of women compared to 66% of men prefer to use websites with a .co.uk domain
• over 85% of people know that a domain name is related to a website, email or an online identity
• the Confederation of British Industry [CBI] supports the use of .co.uk domains
• over 50% of businesses see .co.uk domains as critical or very important

This provides some important guidance for businesses to consider as part of their online strategy. For example, using Social Networking to further your online presence is especially valuable to those businesses with a high proportion of female customers. Those involved in the UK travel and entertainment market should take note that a very high percentage of consumers prefer to use websites on a domain with a .co.uk suffix. This will be especially important in 2009 when it is expected that the current economic situation in the UK will lead to more people holidaying at home.

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For further information about you domain strategy and how these statitics affect your business please contact Chris Dempsey on 01292 521 404 or email chris@gettheedgeonline.com.

The full Nominet Annual Report 2008 is available at: http://www.nic.uk/intelligence/industryreport