One Year of .TEL
The .TEL domain extension is almost a year old and that means it’s time to think about renewals.
It was on March 24th, 2009, that the .TEL Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launched into General Availability. That was the day that anyone could register their .TEL at the regular cost in a free-for-all landrush for available domains.
Now, as we are quickly approaching the first birthday of .TEL, it’s important that you remind those who bought a .TEL domain in those early days that it’s time to renew.
Telhosting Update Coming in March
To help you convince .TEL owners to hold on to those domains heading into year two, .TEL is rolling out an upgrade to the TelHosting platform. That’s the system that allows .TEL domain owners to edit their contact information, and it’s also responsible for the serving up of the actual .TEL webpage that each user gets with their .TEL domain name.
Telnic says that the new look was created based on feedback from the .TEL Community and features new templates, colours, social media integration and an embedded search:
“With the new design, you will be able to customize your .tel by choosing a colour scheme from a selection of templates and adding a link to your photo or logo. You can have a different graphic in every folder. For large .tel resources, the search function will also be useful, and you’ll be able to hide the “All .tels” search mode so that visitors won’t be allowed to go to other .tel resources from your page. Finally, the custom icons for popular online services will be added automatically when your .tel page is loaded.”
Selling .TEL
.TEL is different from regular domain names because it doesn’t require separate hosting, nor does the domain owner need to know how to create and manage a website to use it.
It’s a great solution for small businesses looking to take a first step in getting online, but it’s also a super way for companies and individuals that are already online to beef up their online presence and make it easier for customers to find them.
When you market .TEL, be sure to reach out to new customers, but don’t forget about your existing users who may already have a domain name–offer them a .TEL as an inexpensive complementary web service that will help them get found online and drive traffic to their regular website.