Exact match domain newbie advice!

[cybernetuk]

Hi

Not been in the internet marketing game long but have had limited success on the find a keyword - register the domain - and sell a product route.

Now I know there are a lot of differences of opinion on exact match domains but I wanted to see what people thought about me trying the following. I wanted to start a general review site targeting low traffic, less competion keywords.

So if I have a general domain name i.e www.myreviewsite.com

and then found low competion keywords with minimal traffic and just had posts based on these keywords, would this work, even if the site covered multiple niches. So maybe I would have a post covering a piano course, then a post on weight loss for instance. Could I still rank well for the chosen keywords (assuming I SEO'd the post well).

Would love to hear opinions!

[Barefoot Warrior]

You don't have to worry about getting and EMD by doing a review type site, so it is quite a good route to take.

A lot will depend upon your intentions for this site and how big your plans are. As you're just starting out, I'd recommend going for a niche review site. It will be much easier to rank pages for in the early days and will also give your site focus. A general review site will be confusing for visitors and probably make them think you don't really know about anything specific (until you have many thousands of pages and become an overall authority). It will also be confusing for the Google bot (poor thing ) as it tries to figure out what your site is about and if it has any kind of authority.

A niche focus can be fairly broad if you want, for example it could be 'Home' with many sub-sections, or 'Health' with everything from diet to exercise to meditation. However, it is probably better to go at least one step further into just one of these niches. You will be able to do far more effective internal SEO linking and a visitor may well end up browsing several pages - which Google likes to see apart from anything else.

Finding something that holds particular interest for you is always a good idea, makes the work far more enjoyable.

[cashcentral]

I am always looking for longtail keywords with decent traffic, low competition.
Make a long list...then do an allintitle: search on the longtails. if you get result less the say 500 its bingo...

[tlink211]

I did two exact match domains in the last month. My first efforts with them. I was surprised how poorly it seemed to work.

I bought Lethal Commission system, EMD was one of their suggestions. Sounded like a GREAT idea to me. Perhaps it is but I've been doing research on it this morning that indicates it's not as important as it was before Panda update.

Lethal Commission software has a feature that automatically posts ezinearticles and the like to a special wordpress blog they provide. So you can load your site with content, even supports spinning. (I didn't spin the articles)

These sites were beginning to gain serps but they weren't in the top 40 (only talking about Google). I began being sparse with the content but they weren't gaining fast enough.

I used the Lethal Commission software to automatically post ezine articles to them both, proving, to my satisfaction, that the Panda Update works perfectly. Both sites DROPPED LIKE ROCKS!

I found a very informative PDF this morning while I was researching the EMD idea: just Google "SEO BEST PRACTICES AFTER PANDA" (with of without quotes) should be the first result. No squeeze page, no sign up, not my site.

[source206]

Exact match domains aren't working as they used to - BUT, I think newly registered ones may need some time (not sure how long) - but my old exact match domains are working great (without much back-links etc).

I think if you make your exact match domains as genuine as possible, with unique and helpful information, they will still be more powerful then non-exact match domains (although it depends on a lot of other factors).

[mgreener]

Hi,

Your content, keyword selection and backlinking will matter much more in the long run than whether or not your domain is an exact match.

[TBInternetMarketing]

The biggest factor about an EMD, is that it makes it a lot easier to rank your site for the keywords in the domain.

So if you are wanting to take advantage of this, then you need to use a domain name which has the 'exact' keywords that you want to rank for. Else you will not be taking full advantage of the EMD. If you're not worried about that, then go for any domain name. Your review site idea sounds really good, but giving it a general domain name wont help you rank for the right keywords in the SERPs.

That doesn't mean you cant (you definitely don't need an EMD to rank). You will just have to focus on some of the other on-page SEO factors to get that site ranking for your chosen keywords.

Hope that all makes sense.

[outwest]

I and many other warriors do not subscribe to the EMD method. Personally I think its a bit strange to go out and buy an entire domain for ONE kw. gets expensive after awhile too

you guys only want traffic from one kw? on that domain?
If you now claim , oh no I get traffic from many many kws as the site ages. Yes if that is true then your EMD has nothing to do with the traffic to the other kws then.

[flamewave]

Originally Posted by outwest

I and many other warriors do not subscribe to the EMD method. Personally I think its a bit strange to go out and buy an entire domain for ONE kw. gets expensive after awhile too

you guys only want traffic from one kw? on that domain?
If you now claim , oh no I get traffic from many many kws as the site ages. Yes if that is true then your EMD has nothing to do with the traffic to the other kws then.

This is the definition of a niche site. Your targeting one main keyword and the traffic that comes from that. Not the other traffic, that is supplementary. There is a good reason for an EMD, it can be and quick to rank. You can then, if build a decent authority blog, use other pages for ranking on other keywords. However the main draw card is the keyword that it built for.

[Scorched87]

Originally Posted by flamewave

This is the definition of a niche site. Your targeting one main keyword and the traffic that comes from that. Not the other traffic, that is supplementary. There is a good reason for an EMD, it can be and quick to rank. You can then, if build a decent authority blog, use other pages for ranking on other keywords. However the main draw card is the keyword that it built for.

Well i get excited when I see EMD because that means that there shouldn't be as many niche sites, but i usally found EMD on keywords that were <1000 searches. EMD isnt necessary, but i do put the keyword in my domain regardless.

On-Site structure is important for seo too. For example if your keyword is based on window washer fluids, it would be really good for seo to make about 6-9 sites on different window washer fluids, but always keep your KW in the title. For example good keywords would be BrandName window washer fluid, brandname2 window washer fluid, best window washer fluid, worst window washer fluid, etc. All these would have a link back to the main kw, window washer fluid.

Google like that a lot for some reason.

[outwest]

Thats what discourages me about EMD
I never see them available

Personally I dont believe you get a big enough boost to make it worth your time
you have to backlink that domain separately, and none of that juice passes to any other kws, other than the ones on THAT domain

who wants to go out and backlink 100s of domains separately, I sure dont
nor do I want to pay the domain renewal fees or try to manage that

Heck I have about 30 domains renewing for my resort, that I bought a year ago
and
most of them were EMDs
I might renew 5 to 7 even that irritates me having to pay the 9 bucks