From the Managing Director of Go Daddy, Nikhil Arora's tips on how can you make your business successful by making its online presence felt. Before understanding the strategy used by Go Daddy to dominate the Indian market, let us first go through some of the statistics of Go Daddy as follows:- - 1 lakh crore ($12.8 billion dollars) market capitalization - 1.75 crore (17 million) customers worldwide - Addressing 77 million domains worldwide - 10 million websites hosting worldwide - 9,000 employees worldwide - Working in 100 countries - $2.6 billion turnover in India - 40% market share in India - 1 million customers in India - 900-1,000 employees in India Beginning its operation in India in 2012, what strategies did Go Daddy use to make India its second largest market in the world after USA? Mr. Nikhil Arora, here, gives a few important tips of how businessman and entrepreneurs can also make their business successful and expand it seamlessly by making optimum use of digital platform. # **Expansion in Vernacular Languages:** Understanding the India’s linguistic diversity, Go Daddy launched its service in various regional languages including Hindi, Tamil, and Marathi, and is set to launch in other languages too in the months to come. ### **Target Small Businesses:** Go Daddy focuses on the people who either are going to start individual business or who have less than 20 employees. Startups and smalls entrepreneurs are sweet spot for them. - Go Daddy empowers small entrepreneurs. - Provide tools to budding entrepreneurs to grow. - Help them grow their ideas and dreams. # **Social Media Vs. Personal Domain:** Many entrepreneurs, Mr. Arora says, work on rented property like social media. They think that they can start their social media page to promote their business anytime, anywhere without having a domain or website. However some drawbacks of this are: - Since social media is a rented property, it can close down anytime. - or you may be kicked out of it any time. But, your personal domain is your own property which cannot be snatched away so easily. **_Example:_** There is an acute difference between your own home and rented one. You can be moved out of rented home anytime, but you own home will be yours forever. # **Domain is your Online identity:** Domain represents- - who you are? - What are you making? - What services are you offering? **`Domain Extensions:`** Most of the entrepreneurs think that they can work with one domain, and can buy other extensions in future. But it proves to be challenging for them later. So, while starting a new business, you need to purchase all the domain extensions related to your business. - All these extensions will become your online identities when your business becomes big in next 5-10 years. - It prevents your competitors from taking those domains. - If you don’t take extension domains then it may pose big risk in future and can dilute your brand. # **How to decide Domain Type and Name?** The name and type of the domain depends on the type of business you run. **What type of Domain Should you choose?** When you decide to take a domain for your business then you have to decide what kind of Domain you want to build? These are the top level domain for a business to be successful. **_.com_** **_.in_** **_.org_** Once you decide to take domain type the next important step is to select domain name. 2 types of Domain name you can choose as per your business requirement are: **`Generic Domain name:`** If your business is high transactional, wherein you want to sell tickets, then your name must be generic that it can come in first top 10 searches in the Google. A high volume business needs to have Generic domain name. **`Exact Brand Name:`** If you are building a brand after the name of a personality then it should exactly be the same as personality’s name. - If you brand is based on Individual identity then it should come in domain name. - People will search you from your brand name. - In specific business, other combinations can also be used like alphabets, numeric. # **Backup Your Website Frequently:** Back up is the lifeline of your website. People have misconception that their website is being automatically backed up in the cloud, and they do not need do it manually. However it not so! - You need to take backup services, because cloud servers have limited capacity. - You need to backup data on the frequency of per month. - Many people do not backup for 6 months, which leads to data loss. - You need to take the backup every month as you are putting new content and products in website every month. # **Domain name should be in the name of owner** Businessman often asks their employees, web developers or a business partners to purchase domain name for their company in their own name. Owners ask them to make payment on their behalf, which turns out to be disastrous in future. Since the payment of domain name defines the ownership of the website; if payment is made through credit card of an employee then he becomes de facto owner of the website, which sometimes becomes reason of dispute. - The problem arises when that person separates from the company. - He/she may deny giving ownership to the actual owner of the company. - He/she may close down the domain. It creates problem for the companies, leading to legal disputes, and losses to company. # **What’s the importance of SSL Security?** After taking domain name, hosting plan, and starting your website, what comes next is how to secure it. _Let us understand it with this example:_ To protect your home from theft, you install several security systems in it. Similar, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protects your website from online malware attacks, and viruses. - It is a kind of insurance against online threat. - If somebody is searching your website and if you are not SSL certified then it doesn’t come in search list many times. - Google shows it as not secured website. - If a consumer finds your website as not secured, he/she will leave your website to prevent his system from getting harmed. - It will also reduce your traffic drastically. For your own protection and to make your credibility it is necessary to have SSL Security. # **What’s the need Personalized Email in Business?** People tend to use the traditional email option to interact with friends and family. But when you interact with customers to make your brand, you need to remind them of your brand. People generally use Gmail for personal use but if they use same email for business purpose then people become cynical that whether this business is credible or not. For e.g.: if you start a website *[www.matrix.in](http://www.matrix.in/)*then your email must be like [_‘@matrix.in’_](mailto:‘@matrix.in’) Since now times Email is highly frequency communication, it is necessary to have personalized email. _Follow are the advantages of using personalized email:_ - It brings professionalism in business. - It makes your business identity. - People take your business seriously. - It brings authenticity and trust in your business. - Email is best the mode to build brand recalled value among customers. # How to Choose Hosting Space? Web hosting depends on the kind of business you are running. If your business traffic volume is reasonable then it can work on shared hosting, while if it is high transactional website then it needs to be dedicated one. _Let’s understand difference between both-_ **`Shared hosting:`** In this, you have to share space with multiple websites.  Although cost of shared space is low, but performance and productivity is less than dedicated hosting.You can opt for shared hosting when your business is small, but when it start becoming big as customers’ footfall increase to millions then it’s the time to go for dedicated hosting. **`Dedicated Hosting:`** When you have high transaction volume you need to have dedicated hosting. If your footfall has reached to a higher level, with millions of people vising per day, then shared hosting will start taking longer loading time, which makes visitors impatient and leave your website within few seconds. As such to reduce loading time and retain traffic on your website you have to opt for dedicated hosting. Especially for ecommerce sites is it necessary for it depends on the number of people coming daily. Following are its benefits: - Fast loading time - High traffic You also need to get feedback from consumers about load time on your website to make required changes. # **Expansion Strategy of Go Daddy** To expand and scale up their business, Go Daddy launched several strategies in India as given below- **`‘Bijness Bhai’ campaign:`** Recently Go Daddy India launched ‘Bijness Bhai’ campaign with MS Dhoni as their brand ambassador. It has become very popular among people. **Resellers:** To expand their legs in tier 2, 3 and 4 cities, Go Daddy established a network of their resellers, who want to start their business by selling company’s products in their own name. Go Daddy gives following benefits to the resellers:- - **`White label -`** Resellers sell company’s product with their own name. - Resellers are in front end and company is back end. - Company gives them special discounts and commissions. - Provide them customer care service in back end. **Web developers:** People, to start their business, need web developers/designers, who create and manage their website. Since web developers are in the direct contact with customers, Go Daddy launched its program ‘web-pro’ to enroll web developers with them. The company gives them special incentives and special discounts on products sold to the customers. # Summary - Digital identity is important in this world - Take a dedicated web hosting space - Take your domain as early as possible - Take your domain on your own credit card - Take an SSL security cover - Take personalized Email service - Build a network of partners in small cities - Target smalls business and entrepreneurs