The unique domain with a million uses for your business.
Remember back in 2016 when Beyoncé dropped the long-awaited album ‘Lemonade’, a bunch of reboots including ‘Ghostbusters’ came out, and the Harry Potter franchise returned with ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’? It was a big year for pop-culture. Well, it was also the height of free online games using the .IO domain. Slither.io (the online multiplayer Snake-like game) was super popular and people from all around the world played daily. Since then, you may have heard of Agar.io which had the same premise but replaced snakes with circles. There have been loads of other .IO registered domains that are similar to Slither.io and Agar.io, hoping to achieve the same success.
Top 5 reasons to register .IO:
- It’s short and sweet
- It can act as the sound ‘ee-oh’ to give your entire domain name some life and aid in repetition
- If you plan on attaching it to an online game, you have the power to be positively associated with the other big .IO games
- It’s easy to remember
- It makes your website stand out over generic .COM or .IE websites
Fun fact; Officially, .IO is the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for the British Indian Ocean Territory, but it’s used worldwide by tech startups and giants. It could actually be counted as a general TLD (gTLD) for that reason. Thanks to the domain’s tie to these tech companies, any other industry can use it to be related back to technology. For example, an interior design company can launch a separate website with the .IO domain for the purpose of an AR-type experience where people can generate a 3D model of the design samples they choose. When people Google the company and they see the .IO website in the search results, they immediately know that the website will be related to technology, as opposed to the ordinary .COM website. Not only that but you could use .IO to add a jingle to your domain name. When Agar.io launched, the internet debated whether the domain was simply ‘agar-dot-i-o’ or ‘agar-ee-oh’. You could also use it to shorten the domain name, especially if the full name followed by .COM is taken. Words ending in ‘io’ such as patio and cheerio could be shortened to pat.io and cheer.io.
Have a look at itch.io, spring.io, and codelearn.io for inspiration, and to see how these businesses used their .IO domain to their advantage.
Can’t think of your own?
The following domains are available today for you to take:
- eightbitgames.io
- expereincear.io
- shoptechonline.io
- barbermustach.io
So, try one of the domain names above, or see if yourbusiness.io is available below.
About the Author: Aoife Wright
