Keywords in Domain
SEO Tutorials | December 8th, 2007 | 2 CommentsThere is no doubt that keyword rich domain names perform much better in the search engine rankings than the domains without keywords in the domain. Unfortunately the difference can’t be seen that much as each site has its own way of doing seo, and to measure that this is true the solution is one. Creating two sites on the same niche when site A has a keyword rich domain name and site B does not have keywords in the domain name. Create the same layout type and use the same title even if you care, keep the same keyword density if you want to build content within or simply leave it with just one file inside using the targeted keywords, build same amount of backlinks to site B as you did to site A (if possible even backlinks from the same site), wait a couple days to get indexed and check the rankings of both sites for the targeted keywords, the result will most probably (and I have done such experiment already) will be that the keyword rich domain will rank higher in the SERPs.
Rather than speaking if keywords in domain name are important or not, in this article I would like to discuss if its worth picking a keyword rich domain over a brandable domain name? If your under a new business and your goal is yet to get the audience to sell services or products to and your funds to heavily market your business are short, than the answer is definitively yes since keywords in domain will definitively help your search engine rankings and exposure in front of users that perform a search for the targeted keywords.
While keywords in domain help the search engine rankings the brandable and easy to remember domain name are more in (trendy). An easy to remember domain name will most likely increase the percentage of people that will come back to your site directly by typing your site URL in the URL bar of their browser, rather than making another search in the search engines and hoping you haven’t lost ranking they will find you again. A brandable domain name without keywords in domain does not mean will lack in SEO, we have seen several aspects how we can optimize our web site for search engines which can be found in my seo tutorial category, one example could be the title (for which you can read here here and here).
The domain name industry actually is so busy that it is even hard to find a domain name you like, has it ever happened to you that you think about a great name about your website or blog and it happens it is already registered? To me, all the time. Those domains actually often get registered with the only benefit to wait on someone that is willing to buy it for a higher price than the registration fee, usually they get sold at Sedo or other domain brokering sites. What you will end up with in most cases is using hyphens in domain name.
Hyphens in Domain
Is it good to use hyphens in domain? Will it hurt your SEO? The answer is Mhm Ok, No. Search engines treat hyphens as space between two words, said this means it will not hurt your SEO at all and neither will decrease the keyword density in your domain name. But if you are asking me is it good to use hyphens in a business domain main, I would say no (Text Link Ads has no problem with that tho). But lets give some space and discuss this issue in a new post.
But back to keywords in domain, even tho the rich keyword domain will help you in the search engine rankings don’t expect the domain itself to do magic. Rather than picking a simple keyword rich domain name concentrate more to pick a descriptive domain name about your product or niche or whatever your intentions are to do with the domain. A descriptive (brandable) domain name will be able to rank on the SERPs as well as the keyword rich domain, but it will outperform in click through rate on the SERPs and it will also outperform the keyword rich domain in creditability among the users.
P.S. what happened to my title optimization post? It got deindexed from Google’s index. Have suggestions or anything ? If not subscribe to my RSS feed to find out in the near feature.
Whilst Google do take some notice of the keywords in your domain it is VERY easy to rank in Live, Yahoo using domain keywords and not much else. Do any 2 or more words search phrase in Live and you’ll see what I mean.
[…] I know also that you have already made your keyword research for your blog and got yourself a killer domain name with keywords in it to help you in your search engine optimization process. You have also optimized your title […]