The importance of domain and page naming is obvious, but you might not have realized the connection to SEO. We all know that unless our domain name is highly recognizable and memorable then we wont get many customers, but good domain names also matter when it comes to search engine rankings the more relevant your domain is to your keywords, the higher it will be ranked.
Domain names are not that difficult to come by at this point. Godaddy.com puts out some great prices and they run all sorts of specials once you become a customer. The more domains that you buy the more that they like you. The basic concept here is that people who buy a few domain names are probably going to become pretty big on the internet. The more that you own the more powerful you are. Domain names are like land in the early eighteenth century. They are valuable and the owners become a sort of elite class on the internet.
The value of domains is difficult to determine until you have purchased one and worked with it for a while. The difference between owning your own domain name and hosting your site on a sub domain or in a subdirectory of a domain is huge. The impact on your ability to perform SEO operations increases drastically simply by the ease of clarifying your URL for the search engines and directories that you submit to.
There are even directories out there that do not except anything except for domains. These are the kind of elitist sites that I described earlier. Domain names are the only way to go if you want to have a seriously successful website that becomes a household name. Directories that do not allow non-domain names are there to protect an investment. If you have spent money on purchasing and hosting a domain name you probably arent to excited about seeing sites that havent dropped a dime on investment being rated above you. This is a sort of aristecratic mind set, but it is a natural tendency of the mind. There are plenty of directories out there that everybody is able to access, but there are some out there that are only for the elite sites of the internet.
This elitist attitude towards domain names is beneficial to your sites because it allows you to get an edge on other sites simply by buying a domain name. This investment is the most crucial SEO investment that you can make. There are very few sites around that get huge numbers of hits (10,000+ per month) without having their own domain name.
So what do you need to do to get these good rankings Start off by choosing a domain that matches your website well, and youre killing two birds with one stone. Your domain name and URL should reflect what youre trying to accomplish from your site. For example: calling your website thewebcorporation.com isnt much good if it sells hot sauce. For hot sauce, deserthotsauce.com would be a better name the deserts hot, like the sauce! Dont settle for anything that wont make people want to come to your site. Using the name of your company for your domain name is also a good way to go. This is the fastest way of providing a good, quality description of what the visitor is going to. Many visitors will actually consider your domain name the name of your company anyway so you might as well name yourself something that you want to be called.
Most webmasters settle for safe, cant-go-wrong www.myname.com domains, because it takes time to be creative and think up good names that contain your keywords. You might consider getting some help from the people around you, as you never know what they might be thinking that could be great. You need to come up with a few ideas in case some are taken youll be surprised just how many domains have gone.
Everyone always wants a .com, but you shouldnt rule out .net, .org, .us and the rest. For example, if deserthotsauce.com is taken, you might find that people like deserthotsauce.us just as much.
About The Author:
Lawrence Andrews is an ePublisher, software developer, consultant, and author of numerous books. Visit his Private Label Content and Software site at for more information about SEO and PRL.
You may use this article freely on your website as long as this resource box is included, a link point back to my site, and this article remains unchanged! Copyright 2005 Lawrence Andrews
What can you do if your keywords are too common Is there anything that can help
Well, for a start, including misspellings in your meta tag keywords could help you to get visitors who dont know how to spell or those who type too fast this traffic is just as good as any other, after all. How many people do you know that use a dictionary when they dont know how to spell a word I certainly cant think of many. Including misspellings will help you to some extent, but it probably will not provide you with a drastic improvement in traffic especially considering that many search engines now have built in spell checkers so that if a user spells a word incorrectly it asks Did you mean
Try to think on the same level as your users, not always like a webmaster. Thinking like the average person will make you more successful you should constantly remind yourself to think like the average person when youre trying to pick what words people will use to find you. If you can get into the mind set of a lay person and think What would I type into the search box if I was looking for the content on this web page You probably come up with the key words that are most important. Think of each group within your audience and try to come up with realistic search queries. Entering each word from these queries into your meta tags should help you substantially in terms of increased search engine traffic.
One of the things that will set you apart from the rest of the world is learning the special language of your trade. When you learn about your chosen trade, you start using acronyms and other words that would be foreign to most people, but mean something to the people who would be searching for you. Words that people outside your industry would search for arent the same as ones that people inside it would search for targeting jargon words can help you to get highly-targeted traffic with little competition.
Another thing that will set you apart is using words that someone unfamiliar with your trade would use in an attempt to find content regarding your trade. You cant target your site only to those who already know a good deal about what you have to offer. Your content probably wont be fresh to people who are experienced in your field so you are much more dependent on your products at that point. If, however, you are able to target people who know little or nothing about your particular trade, you will be able to generate a good deal of traffic and probably move a sizable amount of inventory.
One last, but very important, method of providing good key word is to discuss the subject of your site with others and observe their reactions to your language. If they seem to suddenly understand what you are saying, that phrase may be a good one for your key words. Talk to your friends, your family, and other web masters about your subject and see what language is generally associated with your subject. This language is generally the correct language to use when generating your key words.
The most important thing to keep in mind when attempting to come up with unique key words is that there are huge groups of people out there who are interested in your goods but have not been targeted by other sites. These markets (known as niche markets) are basically ripe for the picking. If you can come up with a group that would be interested in your product but has not been targeted thoroughly by your competition, you will be able to drastically increase your traffic and/or sales. The ability to identify and target niche markets is an art and it can be developed by any truly dedicated marketer, but you have to be observant and patient in order to come up with valuable niche markets. After all, you are attempting to do what nobody has done before!
As an SEO, you will constantly be fighting with your key words. You will be trying to come up with more interesting or unique key words, and you will be trying to implement them more smoothly into your web page. The fact of the matter is that this takes time and practice. You have to get thoroughly engrossed in the community surrounding your market. Check out some forums relating to your market, look at the common forms of media coverage such as magazines and books. There are possible key words everywhere just waiting to be exploited for the sake of increases in your traffic and sales.
About The Author:
Lawrence Andrews is an ePublisher, software developer, consultant, and author of numerous books. Visit his Private Label Content and Software site at for more information about SEO and PRL.
You may use this article freely on your website as long as this resource box is included, a link point back to my site, and this article remains unchanged! Copyright 2005 Lawrence Andrews