If you are doing a domain name search then consider the following. One of the biggest mistakes that beginners at internet marketing make is not to do their due diligence when considering the name for their website. The difference between picking one domain name as opposed to another which may be quite similar, can be quite marked,especially when it comes down to looking at search engine rankings and eventually the amount of traffic your site receives. This article looks at a few of the important things you should be considering when you set about your domain search.
First of all you need to consider whether you are creating a brand name which you want to incorporate into the domain. If you are running a business and the website is merely one avenue for advertising the business which is not based on internet marketing, it may be the way you want to go. For example you may be running a business which deals in magic products and you decide to give your website about magic and magic tricks a domain name which includes stardust.com. It is always harder to gain good rankings in the search engines by going down this path if you’re basing your rankings on purely seo techniques. Obviously if you’re looking at branding your domain, your main traffic is going to come about by the reputation you build for the brand name and the products you promote under the brand name banner. However I would hazard a guess that the majority of you reading this article are internet marketers first and foremost, whether you be a niche marketer or an affiliate marketer. With this in mind let us say you choose not to go down the branding route for your domain name.
So what should you be considering when you start your search for a domain name? Well there are a number of considerations worthy of your attention. The three main things I consider when looking for a suitable domain are:
– Using a keyword optimised domain name
– The age of the domain name
– Using .com whenever possible.
Each of the above can be important in making your life easier if you want high traffic to your site. Ideally you would want a highly optimised keyword phrase as part of your domain, and aged domain name and also a.com name. Often it is not possible to achieve all three. To me having a keyword optimised domain name is the most important, so I suggest you proceed as follows.
Do your keyword research using your keyword tool of choice. You select a suitable keyword phrase for your domain name. What type of phrase you use depends upon your strategy, which is not the subject of this article. Let’s say for arguments sake you’re going for the long tail traffic, so you pick a keyword phrase with low competition and reasonable search rates. For example you might pick a phrase ” secrets of guitar playing” for a site about…guess what?…guitars and learning how to play guitars!
You then pop along to a domain registration company and do a search for your domain which might be secretsofguitarplaying.com: always try for the.com suffix as it usually does the best in the search engines. If you’re fortunate your domain will be available for purchase. However, often you will find that it has already been taken. If this is the case I would try to adapt the domain name slightly but leave the.com in place. So for example I might see if secretstoguitarplaying.com is available. I would obviously check using the keyword tool how this change would affect the searches. If there are no significant differences and the domain was available, I would consider using that domain.
However that’s not all I would consider. When I purchase a domain for a website I also like to purchase as many similar domains as possible which will obviously reduce the competition my website would receive. If you aren’t able to purchase some of the very similar domain names then perhaps you should consider looking for another keyword phrase to use.
This process may take a while but hopefully by the end of it you will have a domain name which satisfies your requirements of your keyword optimisation, ends in.com and you’ll have purchased many of the very similar domain names as well.
Finally I would mention the age of the domain. If it is possible for you to find an aged domain which is currently available, because it hasn’t been renewed and fits all the other criteria mentioned before, then buy it. It is common knowledge amongst marketers that the older the domain name the more clout it carries with the search engines. There are sites devoted to finding expired domain names. To me this is the least important of the considerations as I rarely find an aged domain that matches all my other requirements. If you’re going for the aged domain you’re probably best starting with the domain and then building everything else around that domain as a starting point.
For most of my sites, using the optimised keyword phrase in the domain name, shows much greater results in the rankings than sites that aren’t structured in this way. Indeed one of my sites is number one and number two in the rankings for quite a competitive search phrase and it has achieved this without any effort on my part to create back links. This is purely because of the keyword phrase I chose as part of the domain name and how I then backed it up by keyword optimisation on the pages of my site.
I hope some of this has been of help and I can’t emphasise enough the importance of due diligence when it comes to choosing the keyword phrases for your domain name.
AUTOPOST by BEDEWY VISIT GAHZLY
