Spain: Unveiling Shared Hosting Tips, Domain Market Challenges, and Success Strategies

Every market is different, and it’s true also for website hosting: depending on where you want to host a website, best practices and strategies will differ from country to country. Whether it’s providing hosting services, or looking for a place to host your website, for your efforts to be successful, you need to understand the market of the country, with all its nuances and specificities.

Today, we take a look at Spain, and how website hosting works there with Marc Gelabert Cordes of DonDomino, the largest Spanish shared hosting provider with 310+ thousand domain names. During a fun and insightful conversation, Marc shared with us his experience in the Spanish and South American markets, as well as how the company works to provide the best experience to its customers. Read on and watch the interview to learn!

Spain and Local Solutions

.ES Domain

One big difference between Spain and other markets is that there, the local .es domain is yet not very popular.

.Es (españa) is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Spain. Launched in 2005, the .es domain (with small extensions like .cat for Catalonia) currently supports 2 million domain names. With the population of Spain of around 46 million, it’s still a small number, Marc mentions. There are many .com users, and when creating a website, the business will still predominantly go with .com as their domain, but .es has been seeing a steady growth in usage.

Local Language Support

When it comes to customer support, DonDominio provides support in Spanish and English. The vast majority of the company's clients come from Spanish-speaking countries, so the company is able to provide them support in their native language, which is, of course, an advantage. This further speeds up the support process, helping DonDominio to manage each ticket in around 20 minutes.

The fact that Spanish is such a widely-spoken language also helps. However, Marc mentions that people who contact the company with their problems usually contact them in English, a language widely used in the business world. This way, the company can help a large part of its customers in only two languages.

This is a huge benefit since entering a market with a new language requires a lot of time. For example, to have support in Italian, DonDominio would need to create an entire version of the website in Italian, which can take several months to translate and organize.

The Word of Mouth Marketing

Running PPC ads on Google and social media is a widely-used strategy among companies, but in Spain, it requires considerable investment.

Attracting a single client over AdWords cost DonDominio 200 euros. This is where word of mouth comes to help: in a relatively small market like Spain, when choosing a service provider, people often go around asking each other for advice. In the case of DonDominio, it worked great, as they are one of the most popular hosting names in the country.

Users Go With Hosting Providers

When creating a website, users need a hosting provider and a website builder. According to Marc, choosing a hosting provider in Spain more often than not comes first. 'Few of the biggest brands in website creation such as Wix have been spending advertising money to attract customers, but in the end, the end-user is going to register to a hosting provider rather than a website builder, and usually website builder is included in the package.'

Spain Shared Hosting Market

Markets in Spain are still growing. The Internet penetration is around 65%, and many businesses still don’t have a website. Social media channels like Facebook and Instagram were predominantly used, but Marc mentions that they’ve been seeing a change in the pattern: many small businesses like shops, restaurants, and local service providers are increasingly realizing the importance of having a website.

User-Friendly Approach

The users don’t need to know a lot of technicalities; what they need is an easy way to create and host a website. Therefore, it’s important to make it as easy for them as possible at every stage. It’s a good way to make the end-user happy.

As for the website builder choice, it depends on the customers. 'Many users in Spain choose to go with WordPress because it is perceived as an easy way to create a website. However, for people who don’t know anything about programming and website building, very often drag and drop is easier than WordPress.' — mentions Marc. Another way to simplify the process is using local currencies. In the case of Spain, for example, go with euros rather than dollars.

Wrapping Up

Entering new markets comes with its fair share of challenges, but also opportunities. Looking into the shared hosting world of Spain and Spanish-speaking countries has been quite entertaining, as this is a newly developing market with its peculiarities and nuances, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

The process of creating a website and hosting it may seem a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners. Luckily, with the help of the right tools, it can be made significantly easier, even for non-professionals. All you need to do is pick a template to get started.