Making Money Online - Why Picking A Poor Domain Name Could Make Your Website DOA
Did you know that when people search Google, it is called an "exact match" search.
For example, if you search on the term "dog training," Google will do its best to show you results or pages that are an exact match to the term "dog training.
" It is important for you to know this because the perfect domain name would be the exact name of the search term for which you are competing.
In other words, if your site is built around "dog training," the best way to get traffic is to have the domain name dogtraining.
com.
DOA On the other hand, if you choose the wrong domain name, you website could be DOA - dead on arrival-with none of the right visitors.
For example, if you were to create a site on Labrador Retriever dog training but chose the domain name, greatdogtraining.
com, you could well get zero visitors interested specifically in training Labrador Retrievers.
Not likely The problem is that domain names like dogtraining.
com are long gone.
So, too, are names like dogtraining.
net, dogtraining.
org and dogtraining.
info.
This means you will be able to get an exact match for the keyword "dog training.
" Unfortunately, this is true of many, many keywords - they have all been gobbled up.
So what's a marketer to do? There is a great, free program called Domain Samurai (domainsamurai.
com) you can download to your computer.
This tool will save you literally hours of fruitless searching for an exact match domain name.
How it works After you open the program, type in your seed keyword or keywords.
For example, if you want to get a domain titled "Labrador dog training," you would type this term into the search box and then click on Find Domains, You might also include search terms such as hunting dog training or training Labrador hunting dogs.
Domain Samurai will then display all the available variations on the keyword "labrador dog training.
" In this example, you would find that the domain name labradordogtgraining.
com,.
net or.
org is not available.
But you could get the domain name huntingdogtraining.
net.
Given this, huntingdogtraining.
net might be a better choice than labradordogtraining.
What to do when you can't get an exact match If you are totally married to the idea of building a site around a term where you can't get an exact mach on dot com, dot net, dot org or dot info (which, incidentally is considered by many veteran marketers to be a poor choice), Domain Samurai still has the answer.
It will show you alternative domain names with what are called stop words.
Common stop words are e, the, and my.
They are called stop words for reasons that escape me but the deal is, Google does not recognize them.
In other words, the domain name elabradordogtraining.
com is just about as good an exact match as labradodogtraining.
com.
Adding a suffix Domain Samurai will also show you variations on your search term with suffixes such as labradordogtrainingsite.
com or labradordogtraining360.
com.
In fact, Domain Samurai will show you dozens of alternative domain names and will also rank them in terms of their density or the percentage of the domain name that comprises the keyword.
In this example, elabradordogtraining.
com rates a 95%, while labradordogtrainingsite.
org scores just an 83%.
So, elabradordogtraining.
com would probably be a better choice.
In any event, Domain Samurai is a great, free tool that can save you hours of searching for a domain name and can help you find one that is either an exact match to your search term or one that is darn close.
For example, if you search on the term "dog training," Google will do its best to show you results or pages that are an exact match to the term "dog training.
" It is important for you to know this because the perfect domain name would be the exact name of the search term for which you are competing.
In other words, if your site is built around "dog training," the best way to get traffic is to have the domain name dogtraining.
com.
DOA On the other hand, if you choose the wrong domain name, you website could be DOA - dead on arrival-with none of the right visitors.
For example, if you were to create a site on Labrador Retriever dog training but chose the domain name, greatdogtraining.
com, you could well get zero visitors interested specifically in training Labrador Retrievers.
Not likely The problem is that domain names like dogtraining.
com are long gone.
So, too, are names like dogtraining.
net, dogtraining.
org and dogtraining.
info.
This means you will be able to get an exact match for the keyword "dog training.
" Unfortunately, this is true of many, many keywords - they have all been gobbled up.
So what's a marketer to do? There is a great, free program called Domain Samurai (domainsamurai.
com) you can download to your computer.
This tool will save you literally hours of fruitless searching for an exact match domain name.
How it works After you open the program, type in your seed keyword or keywords.
For example, if you want to get a domain titled "Labrador dog training," you would type this term into the search box and then click on Find Domains, You might also include search terms such as hunting dog training or training Labrador hunting dogs.
Domain Samurai will then display all the available variations on the keyword "labrador dog training.
" In this example, you would find that the domain name labradordogtgraining.
com,.
net or.
org is not available.
But you could get the domain name huntingdogtraining.
net.
Given this, huntingdogtraining.
net might be a better choice than labradordogtraining.
What to do when you can't get an exact match If you are totally married to the idea of building a site around a term where you can't get an exact mach on dot com, dot net, dot org or dot info (which, incidentally is considered by many veteran marketers to be a poor choice), Domain Samurai still has the answer.
It will show you alternative domain names with what are called stop words.
Common stop words are e, the, and my.
They are called stop words for reasons that escape me but the deal is, Google does not recognize them.
In other words, the domain name elabradordogtraining.
com is just about as good an exact match as labradodogtraining.
com.
Adding a suffix Domain Samurai will also show you variations on your search term with suffixes such as labradordogtrainingsite.
com or labradordogtraining360.
com.
In fact, Domain Samurai will show you dozens of alternative domain names and will also rank them in terms of their density or the percentage of the domain name that comprises the keyword.
In this example, elabradordogtraining.
com rates a 95%, while labradordogtrainingsite.
org scores just an 83%.
So, elabradordogtraining.
com would probably be a better choice.
In any event, Domain Samurai is a great, free tool that can save you hours of searching for a domain name and can help you find one that is either an exact match to your search term or one that is darn close.