Exact match domain; Local -vs- National? ... And do Subdomains work for SEO?
- SEO |
I am currently buying domain names for some website ideas. My initial idea was to rank in a niche in my local [cityname], using exact match domains.
However, when looking at the domains, I find that domains that include [cityname] are much longer and start to look a bit weird (or perhaps too old school).
I know that if I focus on my local city only, I have a better chance of ranking in [cityname]. Though I keep thinking about the potential of ranking nationally (without city name), as I don't want to undermine my ability to expand the site to other cities (going national) if it takes off.
Q1: When trying to rank No.1 for each city, is it best to use an exact match domain including city name, or exclude city name and just use a web page for each city?
Example:
rent-a-chainsaw-cityname.com
rent-a-chainsaw.com/cityname
Q2: In ranking / SEO terms, how effective are Subdomains compared with the two example above?
cityname.rent-a-chainsaw.com
Apologies if I am missing something basic in modern SEO-lore, the bulk of my SEO knowledge is pre-Penguin (pre-April 2012).
Thanks for reading
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Author at Bengali Tech Blog Gorbitobangla