The Importance Of Domain Names And Page URLs In SEO
October 14th, 2008 by Dan
One of the early decisions in the life of a website is choosing its domain name. For well established businesses with equally well established brands the decision is largely already made, but for new online business ventures or when the ideal domain name is taken the decision becomes more difficult. SEO keywords in the domain name and the titles of each page can help improve the ranking of your site and its performance within the search engine results. As such, it can prove more profitable to select a domain name once you have conducted SEO keyword research.
Keyword Research And Keyword Use
Keyword research will help formulate many different aspects of your SEO. They will be used in the writing of your website content and in the creation of your link profile. They should also be used in the appropriate areas of code in your website. By including primary keywords in your URL it is possible to gain a slight advantage in search results. Similarly, adding a specific page’s main keyword as part of the page title so that it appears in the specific path for that page can also enhance performance.
Domain Practices To Avoid
Search engines are certainly known to look for signs of black hat SEO when they consider domain names. Domains that appear too spammy will inevitably be penalised for over optimisation. The over use of keywords is one such factor that the search engines consider but so too are other factors. Too many hyphens and a domain name that is excessively long can see a website’s SEO efforts penalised from the very start. It is also advisable to avoid the use of commonly blacklisted keywords that are related to products that are especially associated with spam.
Improving Conversion Rates Through An Improved Visitor Experience
The craze for dynamic websites is one borne through visitor demand. Surfers have become more attuned to the Internet and the improvement in technology means that your visitors expect more from your web pages than a few lines of text; no matter how good the text is. By including pictures and other media files you can enjoy improved conversions thanks to a greater visitor experience. While not strictly an aspect of SEO, you should always have one eye on conversion rates and visitor experience.
Dynamic Websites And Dynamic URLs
As well as images, multimedia files like video and audio can help improve results while online applications and dynamically created websites are virtually assured of good conversion rates. The problem with dynamic sites is that they often use dynamic URLs, which can cause problems for search engines attempting to index your pages.
Using Redirects
Fortunately, permanent redirects can be applied that give a web page a static URL without the hassle of having to recode an entire site. Using these redirects is a perfectly legitimate practice, both in the eyes of visitors and in the eyes of the ever vigilant search engine spiders. They allow you to concentrate your efforts on SEO while providing high quality content to visitors and encouraging more links from other website owners.
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Very few SEOs know the importance and role that an SEO friendly domain name plays in the success of the SEO. You can get quick results if you choose a domain name that includes your main keyword.
A well-defined domain name can provide enormous benefits to an online business, including the additional benefit of increasing the yield on the search engines.
A domain name is your identity and will always have to continue using the name.
Google considers its domain name as part of its algorithm or ranking criteria. If your site is optimized and its domain name contains the work primary key, which definitely have a better chance of placing higher in SERPS.
As a SEO if given the option of selecting or registering domain names for his client, always select a domain name with keywords mainly embedded in it.
Great tips. SEO is an art in my opinion. You definitely need to stay away from black hat techniques. The easiest way to do this is by adhering to Googles Webmaster Guidelines to the best of your ability.
[...] Dynamic URLs can be another source of confusion. Those are URLs directed at specific information on your site, which have a large number of variables in the URL address. If you’re going to use them, try to keep the variables down to one or two, as simple as possible. [...]
A real advantage I see in using a keyword in the url is if the url is the anchor text. There are plenty of opportunities for this, especially in forums, comments, social sites, etc. It seems almost ridiculous to make a random url that has nothing to do with your company’s title. For instance, if your band is named, Prog-Rockers, than why would you buy super-prog-zone.net as your home page? No one is going to remember to type than in, so you lose out on direct hits, too.