Two recent anecdotes underline the importance for SEO of keywords in domain names for a domaining strategy.
New Domain, Instant Rank
Chiangmai SEO registered a domain name based on our keyword analysis and recommendation for a client. The keyword was a combination of three words which together consistently have 1,000 results/month in a high keyword CPC and high profit margin industry.
We installed a generic WordPress installation and registered the meta tag and sitemap.xml with the Google search engine (using the great Google XML Sitemaps and Headspace2 WordPress plugins).
We should emphasize that there is no content on the site, just the generic first post. We hadn't even changed the "Another WordPress blog" tagline. The only content on the site was the Title of the same three keywords and the domain name.
A week later this is what we found in the Google SERP rank log:
It should be mentioned that this is the highest ranking for the week, and that Google is doing highly dynamic SERP generation. Still, clearly it is the domain name and title which make this result even possible.
Old Domain, New Keyword, Instant Rank
Another Chiangmai SEO client has a 4 year old domain. Over the past three months we have steadily optimized the site for conversion and streamlined some of the on-page SEO.
After the first month we were able increase PageRank from PR3 to PR4. This is a site that has some decent inbound links and a few banner ads that drive much of the traffic. The site also performs very well for a particular niche keyword set, but not for the first level keyword in the industry.
We moved the site from an old domain that does not have a keyword in it, to one which does (though that keyword does not come first). For example it would be like moving "doodlebopconsulting.com" to "bopseo.com".
A few weeks later, the new site has the original sites PageRank 4 and consistently placing in the top keyword around the 8th page (based on generic sampling techniques). Still, we have seen the following as well for the past two weeks...
In brief: Keywords in domains is key to Google relevance and high SERP ranking.
Related posts:
RSS reader
Subscribe via email
One Comment
Thank you for sharing your insights. It is always advisble for companies to invest some money in a good generic domain as it can save lots of marketing dollars in the end.