Keywords in domain names

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Whether your web site is a commercial one or not you probably have the ambition for large numbers of visitors to come to your website. Some people will find it because you tell them what it is called. You probably put your domain name on your letter-head and business card or on your sales brochures or even in big letters on the side of a local bus. For these people it is best that the domain name you give them is easily associated with the name of your company or organisation.

So - Get a web name for public consumption!

Imagine your company is called "The Bloggs Boot Company". The ideal web name to register for your letter-head and non-internet publicity would probably be bloggsboots.com. But there will almost certainly be more companies who could possibly find you through the search engines and internet directories like Yahoo or Google or MSN. Now if they know you exist and they know you are called Bloggs or some such then they might search for "Bloggs Boots" and the search engine might cough up your website. Or maybe it won't.

Get another domain name to help with search engine rankings!

But the people you really want to find your web site are those who might want to buy your boots but don't know you exist ! They won't search for "Bloggs Boots". They will look for "boots" or "boot-makers" or "walking boots" or "basketball boots".

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation helps a web site be found for relevant words or phrases on search engines. There are a large number of factors that influence your site's ranking in search engines and for some search engines one of these factors is the actual name you have for your domain. (By the way if you want to know more about search engine positioning services in general click here).

To see this in action you might go to the Open Directory (www.dmoz.org) and search for "plastic moulds" as an example. When the result comes up you will see that the words searched for are shown in bold. Near the top is a domain called www.plastic-moulds.co.uk and the two words "plastic" and "moulds" are in bold which shows the algorithm which ranked the pages give some credit for the search words being in the domain name.

At between £10 and £20 each you can afford multiple domains!

So, going back to Bloggs, the ideal name to submit to search engines would not be bloggsboots.com but something with keywords in it. One possibility would be bloggs-boots.com because the hyphen would make it easier for a search engine to see the word "boots" which would be useful or, if we imagine Bloggs sell just basketball boots, then basketball-boots.com or even bloggs-basketball-boots.com might be even better.

So here's our plan!

If this sounds complicated then sorry! But the best things are often a bit complicated. But the rewards for getting this right can be very substantial. So, assuming you are the Bloggs Boot Company, this is the sequence of events you might follow.

1. Buy domain names to protect your company and brand identity. Get bloggsboots.com to put on your letter-heads, i.e. your published domain name. Also buy bloggsboots.co.uk, bloggs-boots.com and bloggs-boots.co.uk to block anyone from trying to cash in on your name. Identity theft is very common and your name is precious to your business.

2. Decide what the key search words are for your business. Don't guess, investigate! If you look at WordTracker you will find a service that for very little money will let you investigate exactly which terms people use to search on the internet. Ask WordTracker and it will tell you which is more popular "bootmakers", "boot makers" or "boot-makers". You need to know this to avoid expending money and effort chasing the wrong phrase.

3. Buy what names you can afford with the most important keywords in. Click here for help on whether you should buy .com or .co.uk or both.

4. Get web hosting that will enable you to point all these names at the same set of files. This allows you to submit the right name to the right search engine without having multiple sites to maintain. Click here for details of our web hosting plans.

5. If you feel you need it get the help of a professional search engine positioning company, like NetSecrets. Click here to learn more about search engine positioning.

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