Domain name of a website is an important part of the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a website, and constitutes the ‘”web address” of the website. Just like the postal address of your home lets your visitors and friends find your home, the domain name, or the web address enables surfers to find your website on the internet. For example, consider the website that you are surfing right now. The URL of this website is http://indianblogger.com, and the domain name of the website is ‘Indian Blogger’.
For any webmaster going to set up a new website, choosing a suitable domain name is one of the most crucial tasks. You get some degree of choice in selecting a good domain name for your website, and it is important to make the most of this choice. How to choose a domain name to get the maximum SEO (search engine optimization) benefits takes up considerable thought.
Choosing the Correct Domain Name
The SEO experts are divided on the exact importance of a domain name in getting the maximum SEO benefits, though all agree that it is indeed important. Choosing a suitable domain name is a bit of both – an art and a science. It acquires additional importance when you want to start a website to augment your business – the domain name should reflect the nature of business. Of course, if you going to set up a strictly personal blog, then you may settle for your own name as the domain name.
Care is also necessary since a domain name is pretty much permanent once you have acquired it and have spent considerable effort to promote the brand name of the website. Obviously, you can change the design of your website anytime you want, but you cannot change the domain name. Well, at least not easily, and at the risk of losing all the traffic and page rank that you have built up over the time. And to regain the traffic to the new domain name will be another big headache.
How to Select a Domain Name for SEO Benefits -
If you want to get the maximum SEO benefits from you domain name, the following points can help you -
- The domain name should be as close a description of your business or service or website purpose as possible. SEO experts like to say it differently – your domain name should contain the main keyword associated with your website. For example, if you want to start a website to help your resume writing business, you should ideally have keywords like “resume writer” in the domain name. When you try this in practical, you will find the best keywords already taken up. In that case, you can explore domain name suggestion tools, or other TLDs such as .net, .info and .biz ( TLD = top level domain, in indianblogger.com, .com is the TLD). You can also explore country specific TLDs such as .co.in (for India).
- Trying to include main keywords does not mean a long domain name. remember, short is still sweet, and long is difficult to remember. Try to keep the domain name as brief as possible. For example, look at the domain name for http://blog.co.in – it is very short, easy to remember, and tells exactly what the website is all about. An ideal domain name!
- Another problem with too long a domain name is that the search engines MAY consider them spammy. If you want to get a domain name such as Best-Blog-In-The-Whole-Wide-Universe, then think again. Another disadvantage of long domain names is that the readers may find it very hard to remember, and you will lose on any direct traffic.
- This is somewhat in contrast to the first point, since if you concentrate on putting only keywords in the domain name, you might lose on branding opportunities. Yet, your own brand name will not make much sense, if the brand is not extremely popular. For example, consider brand names such as Adobe or Oracle, which can afford the luxury of having their brand names as domain names, since the brands themselves are so strong. To get over this, you may combine the two extreme approaches by adding some unique element, such as your name, or your location in the keywords. Example – Indian Blogger.
However, in the end, it is important to remember that a domain name is just one of the many factors that have an influence on the search engine optimization of a website. It does not serve any purpose to go overboard with optimizing the domain name. If you already have a domain name which does not fit all of the above requirements, and have set up a website, you can always adopt other measures to develop it. The best example is Google – just consider that the domain name of the search engine, i.e., Google – gives no indication of what the website is about.
