- Q: For business owners who are too busy running their businesses, can you explain exactly what a .tel domain is and WHY I need another domain to help run my business?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: Think of .TEL as a virtual dynamic business card that helps clients find or refer you to new clients. Where a normal business card has to be transcribed into Outlook, Blackberry or iPhone, with a .TEL, all the pieces of information are pulled into your device through the free applications.
The information is much richer than what you put on a regular business card and can include:
- website addresses
- email addresses
- phone numbers
- fax numbers
- Skype
- SMS
- social media links like your LinkedIn profile, Twitter account and Facebook account
- Google map to your location
- keywords and descriptions about your business
When you change a phone number or need to update any of the information, it takes minutes and you don’t have to reprint your business card. The most important element is that for those who have your .TEL name, they will have your most up-to-date contact information for life no matter how many times or how often you change it! Never again will you need to send any “my phone number has changed” or “I have moved” notices to your contacts.
Here’s another bonus. Many businesses are looking at ways to cut back on unnecessary expenses and to be green at the same time. .TEL is a great way to cut back on future printing costs and save some trees at the same time.
- Q: So, you should buy a .tel for your business, but do I need it for personal reasons too? What about for individual employees?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: There are a couple of ways to go about this. Some people want separate professional and personal names. Others only want one name. It depends what you think your personal brand is and how closely aligned it is to your business. For those who want only one name, they can use the Profiles (read a webnames.ca blog post about this) and Friending options to show certain information to certain groups of people or hide personal information. We find that at the low price point, people are protecting their personal name and business names.
We think it’s great for employees. The sales staff in particular will love it as it makes them more memorable to clients.
One of our staff members was filling out a reference form for a new apartment and couldn’t remember what her manager’s phone number was, so she put down his .tel instead.
- Q: Should a business purchase a .tel for specific products/services they provide? For example, would it be useful for a business owner to purchase a generic dot tel name like massagetherapy.tel?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: This is probably a case by case choice. A storage company in the States got storage.tel and that seems to be the right fit, but a company that relies heavily on its name for word of mouth referrals might suffer from exclusively using a very generic name.
It is a good idea to protect your brand names and company name and you can copy the contact information across all of them if you like or have specific contact information for each. Put a link in each .TEL back to your main website. This helps to drive additional traffic.
- Q: How long should I register my dot tel domain for? Is there any benefit (perhaps related to search engine optimization or registration fee rates) to registering or renewing a dot tel for longer than 1 year at a time? Is there any benefit to your regular .com or .ca website to have a dot tel?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: The debate is still out as to whether a longer domain term offers better search engine rankings if all other things are equal. See longerdomainterm.ca
Major brands are more likely to secure the name for five to ten years. For personal names one to two years seems to be the norm. At $19.99 per year it’s inexpensive to invest early. We see most people buying two or 3 names at a time.
A .com or .ca can embed .tel information in it and that should help with Google rankings.
- Q: Are .tel websites showing up on Google search results? How do they affect search engine optimization or a Google Local listings?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: .tel names show up in search engines including Google and Bing and are subject to the same factors as other extensions including when they were registered, how regularly they are updated, the number of sites that link to them and the relevance of the domain name and content to the search term.
They also have a few advantages such as having very simple html, being easy to update regularly and often containing important key words in the domain name itself or the sub domain. As with any extension, it’s very important to get the search engines indexing your name as soon as possible. You should submit your name to Google and other search engines or make sure you get listed on one of the popular .tel sites and directories so that Google picks up your name right away. You can easily add your name to www.dotTelCentral.com and www.dotTelFinder.com as well as submitting your name for .TEL of the Day at www.one-vancouver.com.
You should also use your .tel name to link to your other online assets such as your web site blog and social media profiles to push up the rankings of those sites.
- Q: .Tel has come up with some humorous and fun promotional videos. Which .tel video is your favorite so far for small to medium sized business owners?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: Hard to choose because as you say, some really fun ones. Most people have seen the .TEL video of the good-looking girl and the two guys trying to pick her up in the subway. I think we’ve had over 12,000 views on YouTube on that one.
A relatively new animated one done by one of our resellers Telregistration.com is pretty cute. We love the end bit where all your contact information is sucked into the .tel name.
But for business owners, it’s really back to basics. I suggest the following to really see the power of .TEL:
- Q: If I don’t register my .tel now, what are the chances of someone stealing it or cyber squatting on my company name? How do I re-claim a .tel in my name or obtain a .tel that someone else has purchased that I really want to own?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: Many trademarked companies did not take the opportunity to secure their name during the Sunrise phase of .TEL registrations. Yahoo! is an example. Luckily they were able to take the name yahoo.tel back through arbitration.
Most names are not unique and because .TEL is globally available, it is important that your Acme Paper gets acmepaper.tel – if you don’t act fast it will be taken by one of the many other Acme Paper companies in the world.
Companies like Sedo will help broker the purchase of a name that you like. We are looking at the .TEL aftermarket ourselves. Buying domains on the aftermarket can be expensive so that is why we encourage people to buy the names while they are still available at only $19.99 per year.
- Q: Is any special hosting required for a .tel? Is the .tel webpage layout standard or can I customize the layout?
This is the another great thing about a .TEL; no hosting fees! Telnic the registry for .TEL runs the TelHosting servers and there is no need to pay for extra hosting.
The .TEL webpage is not customizable. Think of it as a skin.
When you input Cybele.tel into a web browser, it pulls that information from the DNS and populates the webpage that you see in Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer.
- Q: How will people know if the .tel is mine if there are no photos or company logos to verify the listing? Can we upload photos and logos to the listing?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: Although you can’t upload logos and photos, you have the ability to add ample data that will show that the name is yours. If you are a real estate agent going by the name of amyjones.tel, you would say you are an agent in your city and have your listings and links to the virtual tours. You have the ability to add a description at the top, key words and much more.
- Q:What in the world is ‘Hornet’ and ‘Superbook’? Is it free and how do they work?
Hornet is the .tel address book for the Blackberry and Superbook is the .tel iPhone app. Both applications are free. You can get Hornet over the air from hornet.tel and iPhone users just have to go into the app store and search for “Superbook” and download it.
- Q: Are there any other smart phone alternatives that we should know about?
CYBELE NEGRIS:
A: Telnic is working on apps for both the Android OS and Symbian OS. You can look up a .tel on any smartphone in the web browser.
- Q: What are your suggestions for promoting a .tel once you buy it? Where do I start?
There are a number of free opt-in directories such as dottelcentral.com and dottelfinder.com that you can add your name into. One-vancouver.com is also taking nominations for .TEL of the day features.
We suggest putting your .tel on your business card and adding it to your email signature. Many people are starting to remove all the things that they would normally find in a signature (phone, address etc) and just use their .tel name as it contains all the information.
You can even set up a twibbon on your Twitter avatar and put it on your Twitter background (see @cybelenegris or @blenzcoffee as examples).
Make sure you download Hornet (hornet.tel for Blackberry) or Superbook (for iPhone) . Next time you meet someone or are at a networking event, get them to download the app and give them your .TEL name instead of a business card. Follow @hornethub on Twitter for regular news updates.
We‘d like real estate agents to use it on their signs, plumbers to use it on their vans and people should keep asking each other “What’s your .tel?” Pretty soon you’ll start to see it take off virally. There are about 250,000 .TELs registered globally already.
- Q: So, we’re convinced. Where exactly do we start buying these little domain gems from you?
1. What the heck is a .tel?
In today’s Web 2.0 world, traffic is your currency. How many people go to your website, how many return, how many other websites link back to you are just some of the things that determine how popular your website is and how far up the search engine results your website appears with any search. 
