(Wrong Forum section- sorry Hi all, I'm new here and to internet marketing, and I keep running into this problem: when deciding on a domain name for a new site, should I choose one with the keyword phrase in it so it will show up in the search engines, or choose a more memorable and brandable one? Most of the advice I've read says to go with the keyword phrase, but I really prefer a nicer, shorter domain name for a website. Thanks : ) jarasmi
I've got a site that uses a brand instead of my keyword phrase and I rank #1 for my main keyword. However, it is a lot harder to rank without the keyword in your domain. It is easier if you have the keyword. The reason for this is that when you get natural links people are more likely to use your domain name as the anchor text.
If you're in a really competitive niche, I'd say go for the keyword-heavy domain. If not, then you can go with the best branded-domain. Or, you can make it easy and get both; place your content on the one with a keyword phrase in it, and place a 301 permanent redirect from the "pretty" domain to the key-worded one... and then you get the best of both worlds.
It also depends on your type of website. Do you expect to get most of the visitors from Google, or do you plan to start other marketing ways, like banner ads?
Well I am setting up both blogs and mini-site sales letter pages, for different niches- the blogs I will want visitors mainly through Google and social sites, and the mini-sites I'm not sure how I will be marketing yet, besides offering free viral reports... so I'm guessing blogs, go with seo, sales letter, go with branding, right? Thanks for the helpful responses! NickR25, so there's no Google backlash for the 301 permanent redirect? I had thought of that but was worried that it would hurt search engine position.
If you intend to have lots of different websites catering to different niches, then it is better to concentrate on including keywords, but if you foresee having just a single website wherein you would be putting all your resources, then it is better to have a brand name for such a site. Regards, RightMan
branding is cheaper, and better then keywords in non-.com but if you have resourse to buy keyword in .com - it's worth it
you can choose main 2 phrase keywords of your business area and along with that u can put your brand name so it cover both keyword and brand name - just put hypher ( - ) between the word so google consider seperately
It depends on what you want to use the website for. If you plan on being around for a long time then I would go with a branding domain. Think of the big sites out there that don't use keywords in their domain and they are household names - eBay, Amazon, FaceBook, MySpace - no keywords there.
Keywords can help you but if you really want to use some name other than keyword than use it. You can take the advantage in other way i.e. by URLs...these subpage URLs will help you to gain the thing that you are losing in your domain. This post may help you to understand more