I have recently researched a search term and the opportunity to buy keyword loaded url's for example... drivinglessonsyork.com for search Driving lessons york (funnily enough!)

 

Lets say that specific URL was already registered but drivinglessonyork.com was avialable

 

I'm looking to optimise the site more towards the pluralled version, but have suggested that the site owner acquires a more suggestable domain name rather than their current brand named url to compete in their chosen search field. Will there be any benefit to purchasing the suggested drivinglessonyork.com domain?

 

Thanks Martin

maybe drivinglessinyork.com?

 

seriously though drivinglessonyork doesn't make any sense to me.

You have to consider how much business you will pull in through the internet and how much by word of mouth.

 

For example if you pick a company name that is easy to remember and is easier to get a higher search result on Google, then you may get more business from those people who may here about your business from other people.

maybe drivinglessinyork.com?

 

seriously though drivinglessonyork doesn't make any sense to me.

 

Nice of you to answer but.... a remark without any back up is useless to me? Its Driving Lesson as in with a driving instructor!

 

 

It doesn't make any sense to you? Why... is it literal or for SEO purposes? I know it doesn't make sense in terms of literal structure but for the purpose of having a keyword loaded URL does it gain any advantage over a random business name like driveplus or something similar. If that business has no exposue to date people will not have heard of them therefor a generic domain name linked to what people are searching for would benefit more.

 

There are near on 4000 monthly searches for something like Driving Lessons York

Edited March 2, 201214 yr by McGarryMA

You have to consider how much business you will pull in through the internet and how much by word of mouth.

 

For example if you pick a company name that is easy to remember and is easier to get a higher search result on Google, then you may get more business from those people who may here about your business from other people.

 

 

This question is based on 0 exposure from other sources... I don't want to know about word of mouth or other forms of conversion. I'm building this guy a website, he wants to rank well in the search engines... how ever else he markets his business is his problem....

 

This is an SEO forum category not 'other marketing strategies' his business name a no appeal at all in amrket that is absolutely saturated with names... there a few stand out organisations in that industry that dominate the maketplace so he is basically a small fish in a big pond and needs some other form of promotion to get noticed.

In that case using a singular would still be of worth using!

 

Just search Lessons on Google and you will see other sites ranking for the singular term.

An interesting bit of info. If your site was at the top of Google for Driving Lessons York, it would get about 186 clicks a month. However that does not include similar keyword terms.

Get a proper company name that doesn't say spam and do some seo on that for your target terms.

 

 

What do you mean by spam? I have it on good authority that having a key word loaded URL is a great start for your SEO campaign.

 

Are you suggesting that the name I have chosen is spam, or to avoid anything that that may come accross as spam generally?

 

Thanks Martin

An interesting bit of info. If your site was at the top of Google for Driving Lessons York, it would get about 186 clicks a month. However that does not include similar keyword terms.

 

 

Good info! Thanks for that.

A couple of years back having keywords in your domain name was a good idea and did contribute to ranking in a usable way but Google aren't stupid and the ranking algorithm has changed significantly since then, especially since the Panda update.

 

Essentially these domain names look spammy to users and to Google and Google pays more significance to well thought out, relevant content, as well as the biggest ranking factor, back links.

 

In my opinion it is much better to choose a catchy, easily remembered name that can be branded well, so customers remember the brand.

The domain name can help, to say it wouldn't would be iffy at best however it won't do all the work for you. I had a client who went his own SEO way, buying up keyword loaded domains and stuffing them all to his home page. The thing is there are two main problems with this theory;

 

1. As pointed out the variants will not be achieved without onsite optimisation - driving lesson york fine but york driving lessons, driving lessons in york, driving instructor in york etc will need onsite work.
   
2. Renewals - get too carried away and you'll end up with some serious renewal bills.
   

 

Company names (if available) I would suggest is the better way for users to know who you are in a list and agreed as Gareth pointed out catchy is good, look at hitched.co.uk or forbetterforworse.co.uk as wedding sites or bigvenuebook.com as a venue finder. The names suggest the content and with good description tags the searcher will pick you out of the list.

A couple of years back having keywords in your domain name was a good idea and did contribute to ranking in a usable way but Google aren't stupid and the ranking algorithm has changed significantly since then, especially since the Panda update.

 

Essentially these domain names look spammy to users and to Google and Google pays more significance to well thought out, relevant content, as well as the biggest ranking factor, back links.

 

In my opinion it is much better to choose a catchy, easily remembered name that can be branded well, so customers remember the brand.

 

 

You'll be surprised at how much weight Google still gives to keyword exact-match domains. I've done plenty of work using them, and without much effort at all, they were ranking within the top 5 for their chosen keyword. A bit of SEO and they were outranking websites which would be considered a lot more powerful and have a lot more authority.

 

Use two domains, one for the SERPS and one for business cards. 301-redirect the catchy, memorable domain to the SEO driven one and you'll have no problem. Keyword exact domains in SERP's don't really have a negative effect on the CTR either.

You'll be surprised at how much weight Google still gives to keyword exact-match domains. I've done plenty of work using them, and without much effort at all, they were ranking within the top 5 for their chosen keyword. A bit of SEO and they were outranking websites which would be considered a lot more powerful and have a lot more authority.

 

Agreed, take the domain bigvenuebook.com again, it's a PR2 with only a handful of links yet it appears to often outrank higher authority rivals who have over 1000 inbound links when it comes to 'book a venue in' and 'big venues in' search terms - so I would assume the domain must carry some weight however no doubt their pages sing 'Big Venue Book' in the copy so on this basis who knows ... full circle from me

Edited March 5, 201214 yr by NoClass

Great mixed opinions... I think I'll take the no harm in trying stance on this one and opt for 301 from the Keyword domain to the business branded website.

 

Excellent stuff guys.

I'm with Jason on this. I have SEO'd plenty of keyword matched domains and had some great results, which are still ranking highly now. A good keyworded domain does still help in the SERPS.

Ok, this is my research for those keywords. The numbers in the right are the monthly searches.

 

 

Could be tough

driving lessons york - 1,900

york driving lessons - 1,900

 

Doable

york driving instructors - 1,600

driving instructors york - 1,600

 

Easy

driving instructors in york - 1,600

 

I recommend you use the last keyword since is the most easy to rank on google based on the number of results "allintitle".

 

You can make a "fake" instructors review website and promote your own website on.

 

Hope this helps, remember to build lots of backlinks

Edited March 18, 201214 yr by Florin

You'll be surprised at how much weight Google still gives to keyword exact-match domains.

 

^This is gold.

It's sad but true, keyword rich domains do work well. You should take a look at keyword rick sites to be outliers to your company's main site though.

 

 

 

^^Florin You should always use [exact] match if you are taking numbers form Google Keywords Tool.

 

A quick look at it tells me total traffic for each of the following keywords looks something like this:

 

[driving lessons york] 480

[york driving lessons] 36

[york driving instructors] 28

[driving instructors york] 140

[driving instructors in york] 58

[driving lessons in york] 170

[driving lessons york uk] 22

[cheap driving lessons york] 22

 

Bearing in mind if you are first for any given term you might see about a 21% CTR then some of these terms suddenly may only get you 4/5 clicks per month *IF* you were first.

 

Then consider if it is worth spending £500p/m on SEO and getting to the top for those terms. Or whether its worth spending that money elsewhere.

 

Just saying...