Years ago, the conventional wisdom when it came to selecting a domain name was to keep it simple, short and ended with a .com. Think Pets.com, Cars.com, Shopping.com, etc. The idea was to give web searchers something easy to remember that also said what the site was all about.
However, domain names like this have long been registered. So, how do you name a blog or website for maximum profit? Thankfully search engine optimization (SEO) has changed what is considered a “good” domain name.
How SEO Has Changed Domain Name Registration
SEO has changed domain name registration principally because most surfers find information via organic searches, instead of heading to a specific site, for example.
Search Engine Optimization Definition: What is Organic Search?
People use the internet to find information. Organic search is when web surfers type in a search terms (ie, keyword phrases) and sites pop up. As most surfers have no specific site in mind when they use the internet to find information, they type in search terms and head to the sites that pop up in their search results. Most keep doing this until they find what they want.
Hence, it’s important for sites to be optimized well (eg, have lots of SEO content populated with relevant keyword phrases) so that surfers looking for the type of information they provide will to be able to find them.
It helps to have a domain name that clues surfers into what the site is all about.
Yesterday, I received an email from a reader of one of my past posts here about using dashes/hyphens in a domain name. She wanted to know how the search engines treat them. I wrote her the following:
These days, a site’s domain name doesn’t matter as much as how it’s optimized for SEO. This is because most surfers find a site via organic search, not by specific site name. . . . In fact, some SEO experts say that it’s better to have the subject matter of your site as part of its domain name because it makes it easer to find. For example, if someone typed in the keyword phrase “buy organic oranges”, they would land on your site (eg, buy-organic-oranges.com) faster than one that’s named, “buyorganicoranges.com” for example.
*Note: Domain names buy-organic-oranges.com and buyorganicoranges.com used for illustrative purposes only.
Now, you don’t want to go crazy and have a domain name with five, six or seven hyphens, but don’t shy away from using hyphenated domain names. They can actually boost your search engine rankings, particularly if it’s a commonly searched term.
Search Engine Optimization Tip: Which Is Better — .com, .biz. .info, etc.?
Domain names don’t have to end in .com anymore either. Again, a site that’s optimized well will rank high in search engines, even if it ends in a .info, .biz or any other kind of “dot”.
Remember, search engines spider content. If you have relevant content on your site that incorporates well-researched, popular keyword phrases as it relates to your niche, your blog/website will get good search engine ranking – no matter what its named, or what dot it ends in.
The domain name is a part of SEO efforts. If one can manage to find a domain name with even a long tail keyword, 25% of their SEO will be taken care of already!
I was told once that Google might perceive too many dashes as "spammy." Any thoughts on this? What you've said makes great sense!
@Tara: I hadn't thought about it this way — but you are so right!
@Brandon: I don't know what Googles official policy is on this, but I'd think, like I said in the post, that you wouldn't want to have more than a few hypens (two or three tops) in your domain name. Otherwise, I'd think it would look spammy. But, that's just my personal opinion.
Interesting to hear your thoughts on hyphenated domain names. I always heard to stray away from them. Nice article.
Nice article thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
http://www.mariolist.com
Mario
Technorati made a study that shows that a fairly big percentage of the highest ranking blogs are .com, followed by .net and .org
If i'm not wrong it's 56% for .com, 6 or 7% for .net and so on.
Therefore I believe having a .com has it's influence.
A good domain name is always advantage!
Base what I read, it is good to keep your domain short so that it will be easy to remember by the visitors. But then again as you said that most of those short domain names have already been used.
Lucky for us, the people behind the SE know the dilemma of those who wants to have a site of their own.
Your article really is informative and helpful. Thanks for sharing this to your readers.
Great post!
I get asked a lot about the hyphenated vs. scrunched domain name … and what I think is that whenever possible you own both … build the site/blog on the hyphenated domain and do your off site marketing to that domain (like mentioned for SEO purposes) … then forward the scrunched domain to the hyphenated domain … that way if you want to print the domain (on business cards for instance) or you have to tell someone the domain over the phone (you're not saying buy … hypen … organic hyphen …) you can use the scrunched version because it's much easier. And that way if your visitor accidentally forgets to type the hyphens they will still arrive at your site.
*SmiLes* Suzanne
Strong word on a domain name is very important
@Suzanne: What a great idea, where possible. The only reason I say that is, usually you have to register the hyphenated version b/c the unhyphenated version is not available.
@Mario: I think this is the chicken and egg syndrome, ie, which comes first. Most people have been programmed to register a .com, so that’s what they look to do — even when a .biz, .info or other “dot” is available. So I don’t think it’s the .com ending that makes a site more or less popular than another site, but it’s because there are more of them.
Even I hesitate to register a domain name with an ending other than .com — and I know SEO. As more of us get over the “have to have a .com ending” mindset, I venture to say that the influence of it will pass.