Domain and Keywords what is the better option?

Lately I don't think it's so important to have keyword(s) in the domain - just make sure the keyword is in the URL of the page you want to rank.

Better to go for a short and snappy brand domain name and have pages for your keywords i.e.

branddomain.com/keyword-1
branddomain.com/ keyword-2

I don't think it really matters. I'd personally go for a niche related domain and target your keywords on the inner pages.

Ex:

domain.com/keywords

Thanks for the insight guys. My only concern, is it is mortgage related. With the amount of competition the Domain itself has to stand out somewhat to the end consumer. So I've got to make sure it contains as close a match to the keyword as possible. At least thats my thinking.

Good thing is I'm targeting this locally (compared to nationwide) so seems to be much easier to rank higher. Got 2 sites currently, 1 is ranked #2 for the keyword (which happens to be the domain) and the other is more broad but have it at #22 with a few posts ranked in the top 10 for more narrow keywords.

I'm sure I'm in over my head here with you guys, as I'm a lowly mortgage guy just trying to drum up some business.

See, here's the thing, if I am targeting KeyphraseA, based on keyword research, if my domain is an exact match for KeyPhraseA (lets say MontanaMortgage dot com) then with very little work I am going to be ranking pretty high for the keyphrase I wanted to rank.

With mortgages, people are searching for STATE + Mortgage Program (disregarding searches for interest rates as that is a losing battle).

There are some mortgage program changes coming next month, which will prompt searches for STATE + MortgageProgram, so I got that domain. Within a day I was ranking #2. At that point I cleaned up the site, added unique content, made the title/description decently attractive.

So going along those same lines, if I can't get a domain that matches STATE + MORTGAGE_PROGRAM, I've got to figure out if I want to add a MY, NEW, BEST on the front of the domain or a SITE, NOW, TODAY at the end. My initial thought is whatever will keep it short and sweet, thus I'm leaning towards MY.

The other thought with MY is that it somewhat personalizes the domain. So instead of montanamortgage dot com it would be MYmontanamortgage). Seems to make sense in my head.

THat makes sense. Didn't look at it that way (and thats why I came here to bounce ideas off you fine fellas/fellattes).

Now since we are in the SEO section here. Lets say I have a general site:

STATE + MORTGAGE

If I get 5-6 domains that are more specific such as STATE + MORTGAGE_PROGRAM (each one a different program), is there any harm in linking them all together? My thought is to publish unique content on each of the program sites, and then re-write (to some extent) the content and publish it on the main site. Don't know squat about link wheels, but I assume that's what this technically would be, although my main goal would be to attract clients to all the sites depending on their need, with the main site being sort of an aggregator with info on all the mortgage programs in one spot.

There are many options to choose from. You could add loads of prefixes or suffixes to your main keyword. Some of the prefixes are best, e-, my, online etc and some suffixes which you could use are info, online, portal, hub etc. These suffixes would depend more on the keyword you choose. There could be more but since you haven't mentioned the keyword its hard to suggest.

I think, personally I would suggest you to take your targeted keywords in your page url instead of having keyword specific domain.

You can have short domain name and can create a page for your targeted keywords.

Keyword rich domains don't have importance anymore as Matt Cutts himself has confirmed this. Choose a unique name and then create a brand of it if you want to make money.