Domain Names And Keywords For Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing has many areas that can help your business get rankings and not all of them are easy. One fairly simple technique to help your business web site is to purchase a domain name with a strong keyword phrase related to your business. Search engines reward higher rankings to web sites that have keyword phrases in their domain names. And as with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the more popular the keyword phrase the better the domain's rankings.

[1] How to Determine the Best Keyword Phrases

Use a Keyword Research Tool

Using Google's Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal ) and others like it such as Wordtracker ( http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ ) will allow you to determine the best keyword phrases to place in a domain name.

[2] Search For Domain Names

Goto GoDaddy.com or 1and1.com and search for available domain names that combine not only the best keyword phrase for your business such as BostonTaxi.com, LADogWalkers, ElectricLawnMowers.com, and BuffaloCarpet.com. If the .com is not available be sure to look for appropriate extensions such as .net, .us, and .biz.

[3] Hyphen or No Hyphen

It appears at this time that most search engines give good rankings to both hyphen and non-hyphen domain names. If the only target keyword domain available has a hyphen in it such as Boston-Taxi.com you may want to consider it. Keep in mind it may cause confusion to customers who type in the address wrong. They may leave out the hyphen and land at a competitor site. However, if the domain name is very strong and most customers will come directly from a search engine search, it may be wise to use this domain name.

Conclusion

The best course is to weigh your business name, your domain name and how your customers behave to determine the best approach. Securing a strong keyword phrase domain name can create significant search engine rankings for your business.

By: Skip Norch

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Feel free to contact us with questions on domain names, keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Skip Norch is a Search Engine Specialist at Hurricane Marketing, a leading provider of Web Site Marketing for small to medium size businesses. Learn more about our search engine marketing programs at www.HurricaneMarketing.com