Exact Keyword in Domain Name?

it's pretty important, as far as I understand. An exact match of ANYTHING is always probably going to carry more weight than a partial

Thanks Jon, I figured as much. These squatters must seriously make a good living using this technique...good lord.

Anyone else have any insights/experiences? I am hoping that with good link building strategies(i can anchor link my targeted keyword here) and excellent onsite SEO I can still do just fine on a local level, regardless if my exact keyword is a part of the url.

Also...any clues about the whole "dash", "no dash" thing?

Thanks,

Jim

Long term I don't think it matters that much. You would have built up lots of links over time and your site would hopefully contain lots of useful content that was well optimised for the search engines.

However, what I have noticed, about having a good keyword rich domain name, is that you can fairly quickly get decent rankings for those particular keywords.

Try to get a domain without hyphens if possible. Yes, you can rank with hyphens, but again over time, people remember domains without hyphens more than those with hyphens. Also, you could end up sending traffic to competitors because your existing customers forgot your name.

Also, try to keep it reasonable short or memorable. These days one word keyword availability is rare or impossible, unless you buy a domain from someone.

I have bought a number like that and though most wanted $1,000 to $2,000 originally, we eventually paid in the region $250 to $500 for some very nice domains.

Here is an example on choosing a domain name:

"Dogs.com" - gone.

"DogWalking.com" - gone

"DogWalkingCalifornia.com" This is available! It may also be a decent domain name for someone.

"Dog-Walking-New-York.com" This is available. However:

"DogWalkingNewYork.com" has gone and the above hyphenated name (though ok for ranking well), will end up sending a lot of traffic to this non hyphenated name over time.

Golden Rules
=========

Try to get as good a domain name as you can.

But don't let it stop you from starting if your ideal name isn't available. Better something half decent than nothing at all.

Be willing to spend hours checking domain name availability and trying to come up with something good. It can be very worthwhile. Over time you will get better at coming up with good domain names.

You don't need a one word domain name.

If possible use a buying phrase in your domain name such as "HotelsInNewYork" or "DiscountVolkswagenTyres" etc...

Use the google keyword suggestion tool for ideas.

Use google's browser search function that shows you ideas for your search. Under browser preferences turn on the "Provide query suggestions in the search box" facility.


Anyway, I hope this helps. Just doing this exercise I managed to find a another good domain name to do with dogwalking and I have just registered it. I will create an ebook and give it away for nothing, and join some dog affiliate programs and maybe get some advertisers on my site.

Total initial time investment will be about 10 hours. Then with perhaps another 10 or 20 hours of marketing in the coming months and a dozen or so articles, I would be surprised if it doesn't make at least a few thousand dollars in the next 12 months. Other sites have many times before in the past and still do.

I hope this helps.

Steadyon gave good advice in post #4

I would add, that "squatters" as you call them, only applies to trademarked words/phrases.

Owning generic names like mytownicecream.com is not 'cybersquatting' - registering benandjerrysicecream.com is.

The difference is, one is being smart by registering names that may have commercial value to someone else down the line - while the other is trying to profit off someone elses brand.

:confused:Is it a near fatal error to use a subdomain?

Hi Jim -
Steadyon gave you some really good advice.

I'd like to add a couple of things to the mix as well.

I've found that by having your main keyword contained within your domain name does help a little in the search engine results but more often than not, it helps even more so for the potential site visitor.

If someone was looking for "Dog Training Collars" they'd be more likely to visit a site named "DogTrainingCollars" rather than just a generic "dogtraining.com" site.

And as far as dashes go in the domain name...

If you're going to be advertising a local business online and have this domain name tacked onto business cards, letterhead and the like, then you do NOT want to use dashes. The likelihood of someone actually typing in the domain name correctly with dashes and all is quite small.

If you simply can't do without a certain domain name but the only way to get that domain is to use dashes, then by all means, do so.

But, I strongly suggest that you attempt to get a domain without the dashes. There used to be a tactic that was used quite some time ago where people were registering long-tail search terms as domain names with dashes:

dog-training-collars-in-San-Francisco.com for example.

This has run its course and is no longer as effective as it used to be.

On the same note, whatever you do, try to get a ".com" domain name. Register the .net and .org if you want to keep your competitors from grabbing hold of the domains but use the .com as your main site address.

I think it also depends on the topic.

I have a domain in a niche topic. Several competitors with only a few pages actually have the top listings on Google probably because they have the word in their domain.

For my second niche, none of the competitors listed on the first page of Google even has the main keyword in their domain name; however, they have almost 300 pages on their site.

I would check out the first couple of pages in Google and see what you are up against after doing keyword research. Then start playing with word combinations.

IowaGal gave some great advice (with regards to avoiding dashes if the domain is going to end up elsewhere).

Actually, I would start by having a talk with your client about what s/he expects to do with the domain. For example, is s/he going to be doing radio or TV interviews or ads with that domain? If so, then consider how the domain name sounds and whether it's memorable.

As IowaGal said, will it appear in print, whether on ads, biz cards, mailings, etc? Then again, think about how it looks, how it sounds and whether it's memorable.

Cheers,
Becky

The Incredible Value of an Exact Match Domain Name