It’s not as easy as saying that it’s only those looking to make money who will put a major premium on having good search engine rankings. Being high up on SERPs - or search engine results pages if you’re not familiar with that acronym – will be important for anyone who needs to have reliable visibility for their interests in being online, whatever those interests may be. If you’re one of them then you’re likely putting the bulk of your focus into keyword optimization. That’s the way it should be, and that should continue to be one of your priorities.
Many people aren’t aware of the fact that their domain name also plays a role in how well their website ranks in SERPs. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re like every quality Canadian web hosting provider in that we know that the success of people with their online ventures is directly beneficial to us as well. It’s for this reason that sharing information on SEO-bosting domains is something we know might well be good for the both of us.
So that’s what we’ll look at here today, and hopefully the information is ideal for anyone who’s about to register a domain name or for others who might want to reconsider their current one based on what they learn here.
Factors Determining a Domain Name’s SEO Value
Everyone’s familiar with Google’s authority when it comes to anything related to the World Wide Web. They’ve stated that there are some 200 different factors that come into play for SEO, and it turns out that domain name is one of the important of them. Choosing the right SEO-Friendly domain name should be one of the crucial decision for your business.
So, without anything more in the way of fluff talk, let’s get right to them.
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Make it a Brandable Domain Name if Possible
This one will apply more to companies operating an ecommerce website or one that promotes your business more generally. If you can incorporate your company brand into your domain name, it’s definitely beneficial.
That needs to be mentioned, because some businesses avoid using their company name in the domain name of their website. Considering Google values branding more than keywords, they’re missing the mark if so.
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Make it a Unique Domain Name
The best product or brand names are generally going to be unique, and this correlates directly to a more likely availability of the domain name. Not only that, but it will be better received by the users as well, and in a very short period of time this will start boosting your SEO rankings too
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Target Keyword
Choose a domain name that contains keywords about your business, products/services, etc. However, if your domain name has natural keywords then it is also beneficial and advisable. And if this is overly challenging, here’s a suggestion that may catch you by surprise, but is actually really effective! Ask your kids to tell you what word they’d most naturally associate with your chosen industry.
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Exact Match Domains (EMDs)
Exact Match Domains all target keywords you’d like your website to rank for. If this something you can do, then it’s very helpful and really fast tracks you towards better SEO. Do keep in mind, however, that branding is not included in this method.
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Aim for Domain Name ‘Fluency’
Having the domain name of your website communicate the right message is important. People will have a better perception of what your business is all about, and what you’re offering, when you making your domain name have some relevance to the product, service, or overarching industry. Domain name fluency is the name given to this.
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Be Conscious of the Length of Your Domain Name
Industry insiders have never really come to a definitive answer to how short or too long a domain name has to be in order to have the length be detrimental to SEO. That said, we’ve spoken to a good many very knowledgeable people about this and the consensus is that you should never have more than 2 separate words in your domain name.
Which leads us to our next point very nicely..
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Avoid Hyphens in a Domain Name
Using hyphens in a domain isn’t uncommon, but the plain fact is that you shouldn’t do it. Why? Hyphens are associated with spammy websites. There are plenty of filters out there to banish spam URLs from SERPs, and if your domain name has a hyphen then your website may suffer a similar fate.
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No Numbers Either
Numbers are also inadvisable. This is primarily because if someone hears about your domain name and then remembers it later with their phone in hand or in front of the desktop or notebook they may well find themselves thinking if they are enter the digit or spell it out when entering the URL. Try it once and be unsuccessful and they may just decide to give up on it.
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Domain Extension
A domain name with an extensions that qualifies as a Top Level Domain (TLD) is very advantageous when it comes to SEO. A .com domain is still the industry standard for TLDs, so if your domain name of choice has that extension available it’s worthy whatever cost there is to acquire it.
It absolutely boost the credibility of your domain as well.
