In the beginning, all you needed for your website was to choose a good domain name and you’d substantially influence your rankings. All companies had to do was have a domain name which was a keyword on its own and their rank would go higher in search engines. But like everything else, SEO evolved and today that is not enough. Google started concentrating on the content and if it’s of any value to visitors, thus complicating everything a bit and taking it to the next level.
Although optimisation of a website includes a variety of factors, the domain name remains important. Having a strong and influential domain name will bring you more links and leads, and put more trust into your brand.
Keep it short and memorable
When coming up with the domain name, be focused on something that will point to your brand and be short and to the point. Using exact match domain (EMD), or keyword as the domain’s name won’t help your ranking, and it will only be harder for people to remember it. The common mistake is to be focused only on the domain name and how it can help with the SEO, but actually you should also include the human factor since they’ll be reading it in the end.
Recognise the opportunity
If there’s a chance the keyword would be perfect for your domain name, don’t miss it. Although today’s marketing is more complex than that, as mentioned before, if your domain name states exactly what your business is, then it’s perfect. For example, if you sell homemade jam, the name homemadejam.com will be ranked better than natureinthejar.com since it points and depicts directly what your business is about, and so it is also a keyword.
Brand your business by branding your domain
Using your brand’s name for the domain will help with building your business and authority on the Internet. In that way you can be more focused on the content and allocating keywords accordingly. On social media and in search engines, users identify where the link will take them solely based on the domain name. Also, something else you should take into account is that humans like brands and that is how they mostly recognise the product. Branding your domain will make it easier for them to find you and connect the product to your company.
Pick the appropriate extension
Most visitors will think that since you own a company, your domain is ending with the .com extension. Also, .com is the most used extension among website owners, accounting for 75% of all websites. Also, using the specific extension, like the one pointing to your geographical location can help you reach a bigger and targeted audience since Google improved its local search. If you’re unsure which extension is perfect for your domain, consult with the SEO agency or marketing professional to pick the right one.
Your reputation on Google
As a domain owner, it is very important that you have a clean Google record when it comes to domain name SEO. If you’ve owned penalised domains before, this will be visible for your future domain registration. Also, if your name is connected to spam, you will have the same problem. But this doesn’t have to be an obstacle you can’t cross. SEO experts suggest you try to fight this by being honest and making the public domain information available for all to see.
Age matters
Age of the domain can have a direct influence on the SEO. You can use tools to find out when the domain was registered, that is when it was recognised by the Google crawler. Domains present on the Internet for some time and providing quality content are deemed as trustworthy and thus have a high ranking. But this doesn’t mean that the old will prevent the new. Age of the domain can have positive and negative effects on the SEO, depending on the period of time during which that domain qualified with a good quality level.
In the end
The domain name may be considered obsolete compared to other newer and modern marketing methods, but it’s still effective and can be your starting point if you’re new to the SEO. If you come up with an acceptable and appropriate domain name, concentrate on a strong online marketing strategy to back it up. And keep in mind that naming your domain rightly will put your company in the spotlight and shape the relationship you’ll have with your audience.