I'm looking to create a personal freelance web/graphic design website, separated from my primary business, and the domain is most likely going to relate to my name. Which is easier to manage in regards to SEO? .me or .co.uk?
.me .co.uk is hard (impossible) to rank outside the UK I have example search phrases to show youif you want to see them PM me as I will show you proof of .co.uk ranking on page 1 of Google.co.uk only but not at all on say Google.ie Google is about divide and conquer so people are using regional Google's don't forget .me is among the few (country) domain ext's which are not being treated quite so country specific like .tv and .co
It's a personal website for freelance web development, I shouldn't really need it outside of the UK, would you still recommend .me over .co.uk even in the UK?
ccTLDs make sense for local businesses (e.g. local gym and so on). I would choose .com or something similar (unless you want only clients from UK).
Use a co.uk, then, mate if you're just after UK customers. (At least it stands out you're a UK provider.) .me is fine if you can come up with a cool hack, although you might have problems with word-of-mouth and type-ins. You'll still be able to rank it, though (don't forget to set a geographic target). However, you will probably be looking to rank for some location-specific search terms, so you'll be better off with a .co.uk.
Agreed People will definately associate .co.uk with site being a UK site. Take 1&1.co.uk for example people think that is all UK when in fact you get German servers but as it's 1and1 UK it doesn't really get noticed by many of their target audience.
Yes, 1und1.de is a good example. Funnily enough, a company I worked for many years ago provided support and presales for 1and1.co.uk, so I saw how bad they were (are? ) first hand.
And co.uk is not bad, UK clients are really good clients, they pay good...here good business potential I would say.