Choosing a Domain for SEO

One of the most important elements of successful search engine optimization is choosing a good domain. If you want to rank well for a particular phrase, it’s a good idea to buy the domain name related to that phrase.

For example, if you want to rank well for the phrase “Amish quilts”, you should ideally buy amishquilts.com. If that domain isn’t available, you could either try for a less popular version, like buyamishquilts.com, or you could buy amishquilts.net or amish-quilts.com. I would stick with .com domains if at all possible. If necessary, you could buy a .net or a .org, but I never bother with other extensions. In my experience, .com domains rank better and faster than comparably optimized domains with other extensions.

One main reason why the domain is so important is presumably because the Google algorithm is programmed in favor of companies. For example, someone searching for “Taco Bell” would probably prefer to be presented with the company’s official website first. If someone searches for “Taco Bell recipes”, they probably aren’t looking for the Taco Bell website, but might like a site called tacobellrecipes.com!

Should You Use Dashes?

A lot of people want to know if they should use dashes in their domain name if a domain isn’t available without dashes. In the past, dashes were very useful and sites using them ranked very well. These days, domains without dashes seem to have an edge over domains with dashes. Although this isn’t always true, it does seem to make a difference.

In my experience, domains with dashes are fine, but NOT more than two dashes per domain name. Anything more and the domain may look spammy to the search engines, as well as to any potential visitors!

How Many Keywords?

Ideally you want to buy a domain that uses the phrase has the highest traffic in your niche. Most of the time, the highest traffic phrases (those with two words usually) will be taken. Three and four words is fine, too. In general, phrases with five or more words have a lot less traffic and don’t work as well for getting traffic. If possible, I would buy a two word domain first. Not only will they usually get more traffic, but they will be more valuable if you decide to sell the site later.