There are many things to consider when creating your website. You want a site that is functional, adheres to your brand standards, and lends itself well to search engine optimization. One thing that is too important to overlook is your domain name i.e., greenleafmedia.com. Sometimes when creating a site people are in a hurry to quickly select and secure a domain name without giving much thought to how it might impact their SEO. Here are some things to consider before you secure a domain name:
- Having keywords in your domain is still a ranking factor. There has been some buzz recently about whether domain names really impact your SEO. The answer –they do. The keywords in your domain name won’t ruin your strategy, but good use of them will certainly help it.
- Your domain name isn’t as important in terms of SEO as it used to be. Many marketing teams look most closely at Google search results. When Google made changes to their criteria, they devalued sites with exact match domain names. This was done to reduce low quality results from displaying in searches.
- Just because keywords aren’t as important as they used to be doesn’t mean you should discredit them. They just don’t need to be the most prominent focus when selecting a domain name.
Since we know that your domain name is still important, let’s look at some things you should consider when selecting yours:
- Pick a high quality extension, i.e., .com, .net, .info, .edu. Low quality samples include; .info, .biz, etc. Search engines will better prioritize domains with high quality TLD extensions.
- Make sure your domain is easy to spell. Misspellings could cause users to end up on other sites –adversely affecting your search ranks.
- Keep it as short as you can. 15 characters or less is a good rule of thumb. A long domain leaves more room for error when typing it, and makes it harder to remember.
- Be sure your domain is consistent with your brand. For example, don’t use slang, unless that is part of your brand. Don’t use terms that aren’t used elsewhere in your marketing.
- Don’t use hyphens or other types of punctuation as they can make your site appear to be a spam site in search engines.
- Make it memorable. Amazon.com is easy to remember, the-online-retailer-with-everything-you-need-from-a-z.com is not.
For more information on selecting the domain name that will drive traffic to your site, or to optimize your SEO, contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.