I'm setting up a business and developing a website for our services. I'm from canada but much of my customers will be in the US. I'm not sure what's the pros and cons with different extensions (for example .com, .ca, .org, .io, .me, etc.). I'm wondering if using a .com extension would be the best since most of my customers will be in the US and I want my website to come up on the search engine that they would be using while in the US. I guess I'm assuming that more .com's show up if you live in the US more than .ca's for example. Any suggestions?
If your target the customers in USA, it is best to choose the .com domain. you may be in Canada but the domain you should choose according to where the customers will be from. Yes, .com domain also helps in SEO if you target the US customers and it is better in compared to .ca domain especially when your target market is US.
.com is the de facto standard domain extension. If you were to give someone a name without the tld, such as beachmaster.??? and asked them to guess what the extension would be, most people would guess .com You say you are setting up a business. That's what the meaning behind .com is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.com If you are doing anything, especially for business, get a .com if you can.