I apologize in advance if this question has been covered before (I'd be surprised if it hasn't), but I've searched and didn't find anything, probably because I didn't phrase my search properly. Anyway, here goes: Let's say I want to create a site about Blue Widgets, which are also commonly referred to as "BW". Search volume and competition for both is very, though that for "blue widgets" is twice that of "bw". I have 4 domain names: a) bwsavvy.com b) bw-savvy.com c) bluewidsgetssavvy.com d) blue-widgets-savvy.com I'd like to use "bwsavvy.com" for branding purposes, but it seems to me (a SEO newbie) that "blue-widgets-savvy.com" has highest SEO potential. My questions are: 1) Should I pick just one and forget the others. If so, which one? 2) Should I keep all of them, pick one as the actual domain, and use the others to do a 301 re-direct to that domain?
I would advise you to go for branding purposes if you have something in mind especially if you are planning to have unique and interesting content in your site. If word-of-mouth works with your site, I don't see the point in putting so much focus on a keyword domain. Anyway, you can optimize your page via the title, META, header and keywords on the page itself
I would go with bluewidsgetssavvy.com. This gives you an easily remembered brand and also contains the keywords to your site without looking spammy (the dashed version). The main advantage however, is that when people give you a link they'll often just use the words in your domain name as the anchor text. In your example it will give you a back links with your target keywords "blue widgets savvy".