Although few people realize it, domain names are extremely important
when it come to search engine ranking. Not only is the domain important
but also what you name your pages and how you set up your internal
links within your website.
Domain names are not that difficult to come by at this point.
Godaddy.com puts out some great prices and they run all sorts of
specials once you become a customer. The more domains that you buy the
more that they like you. The basic concept here is that people who buy
a few domain names are probably going to become pretty big on the
internet. The more that you own the more powerful you are. Domain names
are like land in the early eighteenth century. They are valuable and
the owners become a sort of elite class on the internet.
The value of domains is difficult to determine until you have purchased
one and worked with it for a while. The difference between owning your
own domain name and hosting your site on a sub domain or in a
subdirectory of a domain is huge. The impact on your ability to perform
SEO operations increases drastically simply by the ease of clarifying
your URL for the search engines and directories that you submit to.
There are even directories out there that do not except anything except
for domains. These are the kind of elitist sites that I described
earlier. Domain names are the only way to go if you want to have a
seriously successful website that becomes a household name. Directories
that do not allow non-domain names are there to protect an investment.
If you have spent money on purchasing and hosting a domain name you
probably aren't to excited about seeing sites that haven't dropped a
dime on investment being rated above you. This is a sort of
aristocratic mind set, but it is a natural tendency of the mind. There
are plenty of directories out there that everybody is able to access,
but there are some out there that are only for the elite sites of the
internet.
This elitist attitude towards domain names is beneficial to your sites
because it allows you to get an edge on other sites simply by buying a
domain name. This investment is the most crucial SEO investment that
you can make. There are very few sites around that get huge numbers of
hits (10,000+ per month) without having their own domain name.
So what do you need to do to get these good rankings? Start off by
choosing a domain that matches your website well, and you're killing
two birds with one stone. Your domain name and URL should reflect what
you're trying to accomplish from your site. For example: calling your
website 'thewebcorporation.com' isn't much good if it sells hot sauce.
For hot sauce, deserthotsauce.com would be a better name - the desert's
hot, like the sauce! Don't settle for anything that won't make people
want to come to your site. Using the name of your company for your
domain name is also a good way to go. This is the fastest way of
providing a good, quality description of what the visitor is going to.
Many visitors will actually consider your domain name the name of your
company anyway so you might as well name yourself something that you
want to be called.
Most webmasters settle for safe, can't-go-wrong www.myname.com domains,
because it takes time to be creative and think up good names that
contain your keywords. You might consider getting some help from the
people around you, as you never know what they might be thinking that
could be great. You need to come up with a few ideas in case some are
taken - you'll be surprised just how many domains have gone.
Everyone always wants a .com, but you should not rule out .net, .org,
.us and the rest as these will still be much more helpful in achieving
a higher rank than choosing a name that doesn't contain your required
keywords.
About the Author
Chris Taylor - CEO Catdynamics, author, marketing & SEO
Specialist.
Search Engine Optimization Training - How To Sky Rocket Your Search Engine Rankings
In "Less Than 60 Days!
