Having an online presence requires a unique domain name, and even more importantly a domain name that will mean something to your target audience.This is why country specific domain names are so valuable, and of course why you may sometimes pay more for them but this is nothing compared to the benefits of being the owner of your chosen domain for your chosen country.
Take for example Australia. Yes it's an English speaking country, yes the people are very familiar with American websites, however, the people of Australia like dealing with websites that end in .com.au
If you need to register a domain name, seriously give some thought to buying a country specific domain for your target market instead of just picking a .com or .net
Of course, if you have the budget, I guess there is nothing preventing you from also registering other top level domains for your chosen keywords, and with hosting being as cheap as it is these days you could easily create a small one or two page website that links to your main country specific domain from the other keyword rich domains that you buy.
