New small business.. brand or keyword rich domain?
-
With so many keyword rich domains in circulation is there actually little option for small business right now other than to use keyword rich domains themselves e.g. (businessname)(keywords).com instead of brand e.g. (businessname.com) where competitors are using keyword rich domains and ranking high?
It could be a mis-perception on my part, but, unless you have a very old non keyword domain name, if you don't have a keyword rich domain name in a competitive market you will struggle to succeed unless you have a serious SEO budget.
Unless you are the next Google/Facebook/Pepsi isn't branding just a load of BS ?
We are ourselves are in a predicament about which domain to use for our own website design business. We have a brand name domain name which is a 4 char domain but we also have a brand+keyword domain and are not 100% which one to use as our primary domain.
Perhaps we can use the brand domain as our primary domain and then use the brand+keyword domain as an appropriately constructed single page promotional site, perhaps with unique content which links back to the brand domain? Good idea / Bad idea?
I guess the overriding question is, if the content is good enough is the domain name you choose irrelevent to some extent?
-
Great answers guys, I think my mind is now straight and how to move forward, not just with our own strategy but our client strategies as well
-
After Google's latest Exact Match Domain update, I do not think that you should be concentrating on keyword rich domain name. Moreover, keywords rich domain has problem with branding. For say, if you have a domain like this -
You will find it really hard to promote your brand presence. And even when you are building links with Branded keywords, Google may consider it as an attempt to game SERP by building excessively with exact matched key phrases.
-
Hi Neil,
I would definitely use a branded domain. You want to be memorable amongst the many websites out there - the very small benefit you get from SEO from a EMD is not worth it in my opinion (plus EMDs are gaining less traction in the Google algorithm as time goes on).
Take for example the domain that I manage - http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au. We chose this brand name because it was keyword rich (kitchenware). However, if we had our time again we would definitely chose a shorter, more memorable name. People often call us Kitchen Direct, Kitchen Warehouse Direct etc as well. We've just launched a new site at http://www.avago.com.au - we went for a memorable, short name.
In short, if your content and SEO strategy is good enough - go for the branded domain.
Good luck!
-
Yes, that is a super logical way of thinking about it. Good work!
-
Thanks Owen,
I certainly like the idea of using the brand domain and from marketing standpoint makes more sense. Also, should our services evolve the keywords that exist in our keyword rich domain at present may become less relevant and hinder progress
I guess from a SEO point of view we can use brand.com/keyword-rich-page-name.html which will work just as well in a lot of cases.
-
Big question. Exact match KW domains aren't quite as valuable as they were in some instances. I would lean toward using a branded domain, as it will be more cohesive with your overall marketing. It may also help the user in that they could have an easier time remembering your URL which could increase direct visits, and you may get higher CTR via organic due to recognition.
Ultimately, yes I believe it does come down to content - but why not use what works best for your overall marketing scheme...
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What Happens If I migrate my Sandbox free website to a new domain? Will my rankings be affected?
Hey Mozzers! One of my sites recently got out of the Google sandbox period (cause it started to rank for keywords) but the problem is the old domain sounds kinda uncool. I then found a new domain with a very cool name so I want to migrate my old site to the new domain. So my question is will it affect my rankings on Google? Or will my new domain be sandboxed for another year? Please help me out fast.
Technical SEO | | zachis323431 -
Moving content to a new domain
I need to move a lot of content with podcasts and show notes to a new domain. Instead of doing redirects, we want to keep some content on the current domain to retain the link value. There are business reason to keep content on both websites but the new website will primarily be used for SEO moving forward.If we keep the audio portion of the podcast on the old website and move the show notes and the audio portion of the podcast to the new website, is there any issues with duplicate content?Long-term, I presume Google will re-index the old and the new pages, thus no duplicate content, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I was planning to fetch pages in Search Console as we migrate content.Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | JimmyFritz0 -
Migration to New Domain - 301 Redirect Questions
My client is migrating their site to a new domain. I just did a big redesign, including URL structure change, and 301s from old URLs to new URLs. Now they want a new name, so we're moving forward with a new domain name. However, we're going to keep the site on the current domain while we ease customers into the new name. During that time, I'm going to be building links to the new domain name and 301 Redirecting that new one to the current domain name. Then, once we migrate the site to the new domain name, I'm then going to redirect the current domain name to the new domain name. So, my question(s) is/are: Is the above process the best way to use 301 redirects to to build links to the new domain while we transition everything? Should I (or can I) do 3 redirects from the oldest URLs, to the current URLs then to the new URLs? General question... I can't seem to find this anywhere online, but what is the best practice for what order URLs should be in in the htaccess file? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Kenny-King0 -
Undo a 301 or Starting New Domain?
Hi Guys & Gals, I have a question I'd appreciate your input on. Quick History
Technical SEO | | Nobody1560986989723
When I first started in web design it was just me and a couple of clients. I had a website based on my name on the domain moxby.org.uk. The only 'SEO' work done on it was a bit of on-site work, various links based on forum and blog activity I was involved in (genuine involvement not crappy link building) and of course, building websites with a credit in the footer. When we got serious about the business we considered and finally put in place a new website, new branding and 301'd old URLs to their shiny new location on the new domain: _summitweb.net _(put in place about 12 months ago) Ranks were pretty much maintained and until recently we ranked well locally (still figuring the fallout from the last week or so's changes). The Question I would like to build a personal website, well I'm going to anyway. But as it's a personal/showcase website I need a personal URL for it and my natural choice would be my old url moxby.org.uk. However it is not that simple because summitweb.net is benefitting from redirected links and I don't want to harm our business' rankings just to reclaim a personal URL. So... is there benefit or would it be to my detriment to undo the 301 and build a website on moxby.org.uk or would it, in fact, just make more sense to buy a new domain and have a clean slate?0 -
Client's site dropped completely for all keywords, but not brand name - not manual penalty... help!
We just picked up a new search client a few weeks ago. They've been a customer (we're an automotive dealer website provider) since October of 2011. Their content was very generic (came from the previous provider), so we did a quick once-over as soon as he signed up. Beefed up his page content, made it more unique and relevant... tweaked title tags... wrote meta descriptions (he had none). In just over a week, he went from ranking on page 4 or 5 for his terms to ranking on page 2 or 3. My team was working on getting his social media set up, set up his blog, started competitor research... And then this last weekend, something happened and he dropped completely from the rankings... He still shows up if you do a site: search, or if you search his exact business name, but for everything else, he's nowhere to be found. His URL is www.ohioautowarehouse.com, business name is "Ohio Auto Warehouse" We filed a reconsideration request on Monday, and just got a reply today that there was no manual penalty. They suggested we check our content, but we know we didn't do anything spammy or blackhat. We hadn't even fully optimized his site yet - we were just finishing up his competitor research and were planning on a full site optimization next week... so we're at a complete loss as to what happened. Also, he's not ranking for any of the vehicles in his inventory. Our vehicle pages always rank on page 1 or 2, depending on how big the city is... you can always search "year make model city" and see our customers' sites (whether they're doing SEO or not). This guy's cars aren't showing up... so we know something is going on... Any help would be a lifesaver. We've been doing this for quite some time now, and we've never had a site get penalized. Since the reconsideration request didn't help, we're not sure what to do...
Technical SEO | | Greg_Gifford0 -
Different domains
Firstly apologies for the very brief question as I am mainly looking for your thoughts as opposed to specific help about a specific problem. I am working on a site which has two sepreate domains and within one domain, two sub domains. The two different sites both havea high page rank, PR6 each, one is the corporate site and the other is the company blog. There are also two sub domains within the corporate site, again both domains have high pr and tons of content. My question is would it be better to consolidate all the assets under one domain or is it better to keep the sites sepreate, from an seo perspective that is.
Technical SEO | | LiquidTech0 -
Buying a new domain
Hello guys! We are in process of buying a new domain. How can we be sure that this domain is not blacklisted and are there any steps to take in order to be sure that whatever we are buying is actually in "good shape"? Thanks much!
Technical SEO | | echo10 -
Outranking a competitor when their domain name is the keyword
Hi I'd just like to ask the opinion of my fellow members here : We are currently ranking second for a very important keyword and would obviously like the top spot on the SERP - the site that is ranking first has the domain name as the keyword phrase(along with a good amount of quality links from a variety of domains) - now I know it is possible to outrank them since I do remember reading about this in one of Rands posts(I think it was the whole white hat black hat one he posted recently) - bascially we have more domain authority, slightly less links but from double the amount of root domains and a higher page authority too! Does having the keyword as your domain make THAT much of a difference when we are(imo) quite close in terms of great content and link profiles(and all the onpage factors) ? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DanHill0