When marketing locally...such as a city in Canada for instance...would I be better off using a .ca extension? Or is .com still king?
.ca if Canada or a town in Canada has something to do with your keywords or website name. If it's something more generic though, then use .com.
If you could get the COM I would do it. After all I still think people see it as the GOTO. Even if youre in Canada I would bet a top business prefers .com. You could buy both though just in case why not?
.ca is better for canada as google will deem it to be more relevant to canadian visitors. I'd also suggest you set as the target country to canada in webmaster tools and host on a candian hosting provider with candian IP
What webbmaster said. Plus, if you are using just links for advertising, it does not matter which extension you use.
If your market is for Canadians only, then actually having a .ca is better.. just say you are promoting Canadian restaurants, and you google "canadian restaurants." You then have a site called restaurants.com and restaurants.ca. You'll be more likely to go to the .ca site because you know that it will have the information that you're looking for (ie restaurants in Canada). Now if you plan on providing information for a global market, stick to the .com, since everyone that sees the .ca will assume it's localized only.
Since yuor intended reach is only within Canada, you will be better off registering the .ca domain and using that alone. If your intended audience is worldwide then use the .com top level domain also.
.ca allways get the cctld I think americans still have issues with them as .us isnt that popular but .cctld's are popular out side the USA But if the .com is free buy it as well but use the .ca as your site
if .com is available you must get it before someone else does. then use your .ca domain for your business and with your .com just setup forwariding to .ca just in case if someone enters ,com instead of .ca