So you have decided to take that all-important step and publish a website. Nice. Until I got into the Internet Marketing business I didn’t give much thought to what people used as their website name. I would just expect that they would simply use their business name, their name, or their dog’s name and that would be that (and I think for the most part that is what we have seen). In some cases this makes sense, but in others, it’s a stinky decision. Here’s why:
Yep. The search engines take your domain name into consideration in search results. So, for example, if you were a plumber, and you could secure the domain www.plumber.com this would be a good decision. Simply because we know that “plumber” (according to Google’s keyword estimator tool) gets 1,000,000 monthly global searches. You could use that additional traffic right? Now of course, this is not the easiest thing to do, get a term like “plumber” .com as your website, but, you can dig deep and still find some gems. Why do you think I called this site www.atlantaseo.biz? Now I have some simple objectives with my site. I work for AT&T Advertising Solutions, so I have a job, and I have no intention of getting into business on my own. But I want to be able to illustrate to my clients that I know what I am talking about. And Atlanta SEO does just fine. Now “Atlanta SEO” doesn’t get anywhere near the searches that “plumber” and the .com version of my name was taken long ago, but still, what I have, I am happy with and serves my purposes. Mainly because the “dot” part of your name is not overly important to SEO. It is an important part of branding your site (as people think first of .com) but for my purposes .biz works just fine. And I also feel that people are getting more used to seeing .net .org .biz etc. so in the near future being a .com will be less and less important. And besides, if the search result speaks to a searchers needs, then what does it matter? They will click.
Here is what SEOBOOK wrote in a blog posting by PeterD from 2008 on the topic:
“SEOs release the value of keywords. When naming your site, and deciding on a domain name, try combining the lessons of SEO, branding and domaining. Genric + term is a good approach to use. Take your chosen keyword, and simply add another word on the end. SeoBook, Travelocity, FlightsCity, CarHub, etc. These words have SEO value built into them, because people are forced to use your keywords in the link. Also, Google (currently) values a keyword within the domain name for ranking purposes. Finally, such a name retains an element of unique branding. These types of domain names score high on the rank-ability and link-ability meter. They are generic enough to rank well for the keyword term, yet contain just enough branding difference to be memorable.”
Read more on the SEOBOOK article at www.seobook.com “How to choose domain names for SEO”
The Google Keyword Tool is easy to use and is a good place to start search for that perfect combination of keywords for your new url.
By the way, “website name” gets 11,100,000 monthly global searches. Why do you think I named my article after it? Look at the url in the browser right now www.atlantaseo.biz/website-name. I think you are getting the picture.
I am really into Search Engine Optimization. Great post and I would check back again soon!