The Power of Your Domain Name

One of the most overlooked aspects of effective search engine optimization (SEO) lies within the realm of your domain name.  A domain name selection is often one of those areas where little thought goes into the decision making process.  Yet, a properly chosen domain name can yield powerful results in your Internet marketing efforts.  Even if you already have your domain name established, continue reading and you’ll understand the necessity to explore new marketing strategies with domain names.

Don’t assume the best domain name for your website is the official name of your business or some abbreviated version of it.  In fact, for optimal SEO, the best domain name for your website is one with your keywords in it.  Your keywords are those words you want to be found for when someone does an Internet search.  For instance, if your business name is “Smith Enterprises LLC” and you sell phone systems to your regional area of Jacksonville , your keywords would be “phone systems” and “Jacksonville”.  Therefore a great domain name for your business would be “PhoneSystemsJacksonville.com”.  When someone searches for that keyword phrase in a search engine, you stand a great chance of a high ranking based on your domain name itself.

If you have been using “SmithEnterprises.com”, you can continue to use that domain name. That can be the domain name you print on business cards, letterheads and use for emailing.   You do not have to eliminate your old domain name, you simply enable a new one.   You can use the keyword rich domain name for search engines.  Both domain names can load the same website.  You could even have your web design company build a separate website to attach your keyword rich domain to.  Perhaps you can even get two top 10 rankings, one for each domain name website. We have done this for numerous clients with great results in a short period of time.

So is it wise to have hundreds of domain names for better search engine placement?  Long ago, maybe… today, no.  Search engines only index one domain name per website anyway.

Another very important ranking factor when considering domain names, is how old the domain name is.  A brand new domain name does not carry near as much weight as a domain name that is 2, 5 or 10 years old.  So an ideal domain name is one that is keyword rich and has age to it.  If you are thinking about getting a keyword rich domain name, get some as soon as possible so it can start aging.

In addition to how old the domain name is, another ranking factor is how far out the name is registered.  If Google is considering where to rank two similar websites and one domain name expires in 3 months and the other expires in 5 years, it will give more credibility to the one that looks like it is in it for the long haul… just like it gives more credibility to ones that have been around for awhile.

One final suggestion, when promoting your domain name, express it in the way that is easiest to read quickly.  Most times that may be capitalizing the first letter of each word.  For instance, which is easier and quicker to read:

MyOwnDomainName.com  or  myowndomainname.com

Displaying your domain name in the easiest reading format could make a big difference  on a van driving down the road, or a job site yard-sign you pass by… both of which are good ways to promote your website off-line.
About the Author
Kornel J. Kurtz is President/CEO of WebTek, an Internet marketing company also offering web design services and search engine optimization in Lancaster PA.  He has been helping companies succeed online for over 13 years.