SEO Traffic Spider | Choosing a SEO Friendly Domain Name
March 19th, 2010 | 
Author: Only a few years back, you could be a successful entrepreneur without the need of a website. And the reason for this was very simple, before the nineties there was no Internet! With the introduction of the Internet, things changed drastically. And nowadays, it is impossible to even think of a globally successful enterprise that does not have an online presence. But what is more important is the fact, that just the presence of a visually appealing, information rich and well crafted website is not enough to get your company noticed on the internet. It has to be correctly marketed online through certain procedures so that it is prominently indexed by search engines. This is the primary reason why SEO or Search Engine Optimization has become such an important key to Internet business success.
We all know the importance of search engine rankings these days. Therefore, choosing a SEO friendly domain name means that you have started on the right note in the virtual world. One of the crucial roles in search engine rankings is played by domain names related to keywords that focus on your business and website. It definitely goes a long way in attracting target audience, getting increased conversions and generating business.
The process of choosing the right domain name needs careful considerations and deliberations, when you are thinking of starting a new website. And this is especially important if search engine optimization is going to be the main tool for directing traffic to your website. A SEO friendly domain name is one of the key factors that contribute to the success of the website. Therefore, you have to keep in mind the objective of your website and accordingly choose targeted keywords that you are planning to use to get top search engine rankings for your site. Inserting the main keywords of your business into the URL is a good idea. This is because not only is your website theme kept same throughout but Google, too, looks favorably on it.
Now, let us see what the different factors are that can be adopted to make a SEO friendly domain name.
Keywords in the Domain Name
Keywords play the role of a catalyst in a domain name. Though the keywords themselves do not constitute the entire process of SEO but they definitely contribute in making the entire procedure happen at a much faster rate.
Stick with the “.com”
The top level domain or TLD remains the most popular extension for a domain name. A .com domain definitely allows credibility boost. It is the most widely accepted extension. Of course, we can’t neglect that there are a lot of successful websites that end with a “.net”, “.uk”, or a “.biz”, but at the same time a .com extension by far is the most recalled one. If your business happens to be a new one, do you really want your customers to forget all about you just because they recalled to type in a “.com” instead of your “.edu”, and as a result couldn’t go back to your site! However, there are certain exceptions to this rule, especially if your business is geographically constrained and targets only local customers, in that case a “.au” will work as well.
Shorter and Catchier
It is best to have a domain name that is short and catchy. It is easier for visitors to recall and remember these. And you definitely don’t want a website that loses out on traffic because the domain name is too long, tricky or complicated to remember. Short names can also be typed more easily. Ensure that your domain name is easy to remember and easy to type.
No Hyphens or Numbers
Use of hyphenated or numbered domain names should be avoided. This is because it creates complications. Most often than not such domain names are forgotten easily, because it can’t be recalled where exactly the hyphen or the number has to be placed. You may end up losing your customers to other similar named websites, who do not use a hyphen or a number. And more often than not, hyphenated domain names sound like cheap substitutes of the real thing.
Type-In Traffic
This is when someone simply arrives at a particular website by just typing what they are searching for in their URL bar, and add a “.com” at the end. And a lot of people actually do that! Therefore, if you can choose a domain name that has an exact match keyword then you have better chances of receiving traffic. Also these kinds of domain names have better SEO benefits going for them.
Choosing a domain name that is SEO friendly can work wonders for your business by attracting lots of visitors to your website. With a heavy inflow of traffic, there are better chances of increases in conversion. All this definitely contributes in making your business a success.
techguy from Las Vegas, NV asks: “In a blog, is it worth spending time creating tags and categories for SEO purposes?”
Question about SEO
How to know if a SEO company is reputable?What's the easiest way to know and understand what a ethical SEO company is?
Is there a website with good references?
Posted in Business
its guds
Hard question. But here's what Search professionals do….
The one, best reference is to see if they are members of the largest most reputable group of Search professionals, SEMPO (the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization. Their directory of member companies is here: http://www.sempo.org/directories/ You can find one in your areas with that link. It's not an endorsement but it's very helpful.
What else can you do? Here are some RED flags – don't work with any vendor that says they guarantee or promise the top spot or even the first page. Either they can't deliver or they will get you rankings for keywords that don't prove value, such as for your brand name.
SEO's for small businesses are typically small businesses themselves, so get local references. Ask for five and call at least three. Remember that you don't need just traffic, you need "quality" traffic and that's what makes a good SEO. Ask the references if they get more SALES as a result.
As a fall-back, call your yellow page provider. All of them have an SEO program (AT&T, Yellow Book, Verizon etc.). They are reputable and have generally good results. You can also use Web.com, Yodle and Reach Local. They are national companies and have average results (see links below). They will also give you a good idea of what the right rates should be…
Good luck!
There is so much free information out there on the net about SEO.
Remember SEO is not the end all and be all of internet marketing.
Some free sites to visit:
http://www.inboundinternetmarketingblog.com
http://www.sethgodin.com
http://www.davidmeermanscott.com
http://www.hubspot.com
Hubspot is a great company with a ton of free stuff.
Use their free webgrader.
Hmmmm,
I have used interstitial ads on a couple of my sites from a number of providers (adsense et al).
From my experience
Full Page Ads
In my honest opinion, they do not provide a consistent income as they only serve to annoy the web users. I tried and tested and would never use full page ads again (unless your only focus is income but this will come at the cost of users and traffic).
in text ads
these are somewhat less annoying for users – when using the in text ads I found that the revenue was pretty pump.
In my expereince, fixed ads work best, I use Google, Tradedoubler and Commision Junction. Google is always the highest performa but the other 2 can bring bigger commisions (depends on the site and volume of content). I like Google best as you get paid for the click, you never lose.
I run my free business websites on this principal, bigger sites can demand much higher prices simply for display so its a differant ballpark.
Anyway, I suggest minimal use of interstitail ads, fixed position (well placed and colour matching) has always been my winner.
UPDATE – missed the SEO part sorry.
From my experience interstitail ads are only damaging to SEO if you allow full page ads to open on a visitors first page visit. Example, Adsense Full page ads can be set to be displayed to visitors after a number of page views (1,3,5 if I recall correctly). I experimented with the 1 page ads but found that:
a, my ad revenue went down (surprisingly)
b, I had less page views with much higher bounce rates (not surprisingly)
c, page integration to search engines was slower (I'm guessing that the spiders bounced too)
Notwithstanding this, there was no change to actual page rank and visitor level were pretty much the same. From this we can conclude that full page ads are not the money spinner they would initially appear to be. To be honest, I dont think I would use this as an advertising means either.
Full page ads are on a par with pamphlets through your door, at first they were shiny and interesting, after a while they just get damn annoying. Once you annoy a user, you lose their interest! the rest is obvious.
I hope this helps. Maybe someone else has had some success.
Instead of putting up a standard "Under construction" page I would put up a page of text describing what will be on the site. This way if search engines find it they will know how to index it.
I recommend that you go to http://www.websitegrader.com to check details like title length, meta tags…
It doesn't really matter what keywords you use for subpages as long as your page is optimized for them and your content is a match.
As long as you build backlinks to your site and subpages, you'l be going in the right direction!
Onsite seo is related to everything that takes place on your actual website.
The most important factors as to my knowledge are your page
titles
meta description
meta keywords
internal linking
keywords density
usage of latent symentic indexing
sitemaps
robots.txt
alt tags for images
This along with strong offsite seo should help you rank very well in the search engines.
hope this helps
As long as there is enough electricity there will be internet and if there's internet there will be search engines and if there are search engines there will be SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
However, Google does continue to refine methods to filter out black-hat SEO techniques (SPAM / Abuse).
So, basically short of an apocalyptic event, SEO will still be around for a foreseeable future.
Good Luck!
Thanks, TheWriter
Sprank was too harsh regarding SEO.
Well SEO is one of the best and cost effective things which you can do with your business and gain lots & lots of popularity.
First step you should do is to look out for keywords using the following tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Search for keywords and you will also find some similar words related to your keywords. Decide on keywords which are most related to your business and do the following activities:
Social Bookmarking – It means bookmarking your website on various Social Bookmarking websites like digg.com, delicious.com, jamespot.com, fanpop.com etc.
Question & Answers websites. Answers questions related to your business and get visitors to visit your website. There are many Q & A websites like Yahoo Answers, Blurtit.com, answerbag.com. yedda.com etc.
Above two will help you get referral traffic and some dofollow links from bookmarking websites will also help you in increasing website popularity.
If you have a web design company, try finding a SEO company to work with. My company was strictly graphics and web design, and for over a year I outsources all of my SEO jobs to a company I liked. Over the time, I slowly picked up things (all for free) and now I would consider myself very well versed in the field. I have now merged my company with the other to create http://www.Webmosa.com – I am very happy with the way I learned. Plus, if you plan to sell the service you are at least getting trained by actual professionals in the field. SEO changes over time, and one needs to stay on top of the game in order to be the best. Google "Tacoma SEO", within 1 month of the merger and launch of our new site we are already 5th on page one – crushing other companies that have been around for years.
To be the best, learn from the best. SEO books and blogs are often out dated.