SEO and Domain Names

Date: 1 Jun 2011

Author: Andy Carroll

Domain names are usually the first things people choose when creating a website and for good reason. The domain name is a crucial element in the branding of a website and this brand will affect the core of the design. It is also an important factor in SEO, search engines will take the domain name into account when returning results.

Although your domain choice should be taken care of early I would always advise it to come after keyword research for any site relying on search engine traffic. Too often keyword analysis comes too late into the plans and this has a habit of creating duplicated work or poor search engine results.

Your first steps should be to determine who is your typical market persona and what are the main generic phrases they are likely to type to search to find you or your competitors. It's no good to appear on page 1 of google for "George and William Ltd" if all your potential customers are searching for "Steel Fabricators". The only people typing your company name are existing customers or people who already know your business. That is fine for Sony or Apple but most businesses will need to battle with their competition to appear on page 1 for the best performing phrases.

Once you have determined a selection of the best performing phrases in your geographic area your choice of domain should include some of these phrases eg www.SteelFabricators.co.nz

Other important considerations are as follows:

• The size of domain, the shorter the better
• The age of the domain, the older the better
• The type of domain - .com, .net for international and .co.nz for New Zealand websites. Many SEO practitioners have reported that .tv and .biz or similar have less search engine value.
• The registration expiry of the domain, the longer the domain is registered the better

For a selection of premium keyword rich domain names please visit: www.keyword.co.nz.