You can, but then you would no longer have an exact match domain. However, if you do your SEO and backlinking right, it really won't matter if you have an EMD. That factor is only one of many that make a site rank will in the search engines.

but i still would van get some benefit that the word is in domain name.
like weight loss tips is the kw
and domain weightlosssecretsandtips.com
so the"tips" would be seperated from the 1st word...

You'd probably get more benefit for the keyword "weight loss secrets" since you've got it all together at the beginning of the domain.

It's a good idea to just target one keyword phrase in your domain though, as too much and it gets long and difficult to type in/remember. If you want to weight loss tips in there, why not do something like weightlosstipsblog or weightlosstipsx

I have ranked pages that target words similar to your situation--the same root but with varied endings. I had it set up like "weightlosssecretsandtips" in the page name and backlinked with both keyword anchors. Both ranked page 1.

But really, it probably won't matter too much if you just go with 1 of the kws in the domain so it looks cleaner. Stick both in the title and description though.

vapsjee,


That's a grey area.

We all know that EMDs always rank well.

But in your case, having the necessary words in the domain might actually help you out. Still, there's no solid proof of this.


Calfred

I would chose one, and then build another page for the other which is optimized only for that keyword. Then you would have a url like keyword.com/2ndkeyword

I have done this before with great success but only with easy keywords to rank for if you are going after difficult keywords it will take you a lot longer to rank for, but for easy keywords it actually brings in more traffic then a single EMD because you can rank for 3 or 4 keywords

for example best leather hat reviews can be
best leather hat
leather hat
leather hat reviews

at least you have you have your keyword in your domain name

EMD domains do work really well at the moment, but with so many people using them and often for sites that don't really add that much value, I'm not sure how long it will be before Google start reducing the value of an EMD.

It's important to have your keywords in the domain name, but I think building a good quality site and doing your on page and off page SEO right is more important for getting and keeping a good rank (in the long term) than worrying too much about an EMD. I think sometimes people get a bit to concerned with getting the domain right and then don't put enough effort into other SEO factors.

Just my opinion though - I may be wrong!