NOTE: This is Part 1 of a series of articles on Dynamite Domains
In this first article, I'm going to share with you one of the key factors to what makes the difference between a good domain name and a bad domain name when it comes to SEO.
We'll cover what is an actual domain name and also why keywords are so important when it comes to choosing a domain name.
Once you understand the influence that this has on your domain names, not only will you be able to get faster rankings in less time and effort, but it will also cost you less money which is what we all want, right?
What is a Domain Name?
So, what is an actual domain name? A domain name is the address you type into your browser when you want to get to a website. It's the bit that ends in the .com, or .org, or .net (or .co.uk, for example, if you have a UK domain).
As an example, Google's domain name is Google.com and Google's UK domain name is Google.co.uk and Facebook's domain name is Facebook.com and so on.
Choosing a Domain Name
Unless you're a large multinational company or a social media site that's looking to standout from the crowd and build a brand, then an SEO friendly domain name is an important asset to have.
Keywords
So, the first thing we look at when deciding if a domain name is actually friendly is keywords.
As you probably already know, keyword research is the critical first step in your SEO strategy. But you may not be aware that despite what they may publically say, the search engines, at present anyway, see keywords or key phrases in the actual domain name as an important factor when ranking your website.
So, let's take an example. If you want to rank for the key phrase car hire because you're in the car hire industry, then you would ideally want the keywords car and hire in the domain name
Exact Matched Names
An example of an Exact Match optimized domain name would be carhire.com.
This is an exact match because it contains the keywords car and hire in that order and contains no other words or phrases. Where possible, we should try to get Exact Match Domain Names.
Phrase Matched Names
A phrase matched optimized domain would be, for example, mycarhire.com. This also contains the words car and hire in that order, but also contains the word my.
Phrase Matched Domain Names are the next best thing to Exact Match.
Broad Matched names
A broad match optimized domain name would be, for example, hirethiscar.com. As you can see, this contains the keywords car and hire, but in a different order and it also contains the word this.
Again, Broad Matched are less desirable for us than Phrase Matched Domain Names.
For reference, a non keyword-optimized domain name would be, for example, Joesautomobilerentals.com. As you can see, this is in the same industry, but it doesn't actually include the keywords car or hire anywhere in the domain.
We should avoid Domain Names that are not Keyword Optimised.
Summary
So, all things being equal, a domain that has exact match for that target keyword or key phrase is likely to outrank other domains for that keyword or key phrase and that would be followed by a phrase match domain followed by broad match.
Again, all things being equal, the less optimized the domain name is for a target key phrase, the more time, effort and cost is involved in getting a high ranking.
So, getting the right keywords in your domain from the start can save you time, money and months, if not years, of hard work and frustration.
