SEO Updates

One thing I’ve learnt since I’ve started dabbling into SEO is that when it comes to domain names, cryptic and smart names aren’t a good choice, contrary to what a “newcomer” in this field may think. Instead, one should aim at transparency and efficiency. Here’s a little list of all the tips and tricks I’ve gathered so far about this:

• Choose a name that reflects your product or the goal of your site. Don’t pick BobJones.com if you sell lava lamps: in such a case, lavalamps.com would be a much better choice.
• Pick the domain name first, then build your site around it, not the contrary (see next point for one of the reasons to this).
• Don’t take too much time to choose: things move fast on the internet, and you may find yourself without anything if the domain name you so carefully thought has been taken in the meantime.
• Keep your domain name short! This also involves keeping it readable and easy to remember.
• Use keywords in your domain name. If a person wants to buy a lava lamp, it’s only logical that the first URL she’ll type in will be lavalamp.com, or something close to that.
• In the same vein, try to get your domain name in multiple extensions (.com, .net, .biz…), in singular and plural versions if applicable, as well as in several spellings. Yes, this is to take typos into accounts.
• Always prefer .com as top domain level, as it’s the most searched for TLD.
• Limit your domain name to two words, three at the most.
• Avoid hyphens, numbers, “the”, “and”, etc… in your domain name. These make things terribly awkward when you need to spell it; moreover, people usually won’t think about typing “the” in a URL.

There probably are other useful tips to take into account here, but these ones should already carry you far when it comes to marketing your website.

Yzabel wrote this on September 2nd, 2005 and filed it under SEO Tips, Internet Marketing & SEO |