First, there are several classifications of domain names when it comes to SEO:

• Branded domain names (Google.com, Twitter.com, Nike.com)
• Generic domain names (Pizza.com, Baseball.com, Postcards.com)
• Geographic domain names (SeattlePizza.com, GeorgiaCleaners.com)
• Hybrid branded/generic domain names (JoesPizza.com, NikeBasketball.com)

Each of these types of domains has a different impact with search engines.

When it comes to SEO, search engines are all about keywords. If you’re Joe and you run a pizza company in Seattle, you’ll get a few searches for Joe’s Pizza from customers who are already familiar with your business, but just think if you could tap into the market of people out there searching for other pizza-related terms (“pizza”, “pizza in Seattle”, “Seattle pizza delivery”, “pizza pies”, etc.). Good search engine optimization can allow even small businesses to rank well for valuable keywords.

One of the most important SEO factors is backlinks – that is, links to your website from other websites. Not only is it important to get those links, but what the links say as anchor text is also important. For instance, this link: Domain Names links to Domain.com with the anchor text “domain names”. If this link were on other websites, search engines would see it as a signal that our website is relevant to people searching for domain names, and as a result would rank us higher for that search term. It’s not particularly easy to just tell people what they should use for anchor text, so your goal needs to be to make people intuitively choose good anchor text. This is where having the right domain name can play a huge role.

If you’re a well-established household brand name with your customers and potential customers, a branded domain may be the best option. If you’re Nike, you definitely want to have your main website at Nike.com. However, Nike has also gone to the effort of making sure they own hybrid domains as well, which all redirect to their main domain. If you type in NikeBasketball.com, NikeSoccer.com, NikeGolf.com, and many other common sports, you’ll end up on Nike’s website. Branded domains generally garner numerous backlinks for that brand name, but not so many for important keywords.

Generic domain names can be “category killers” of sorts, and as such pretty much any simple generic .COM domain name you could think of has already been registered. In fact, there’s a high-priced aftermarket for generic domains. Take, for example, the recent sale of Candy.com for $ 3 million. Generic domain names are valuable for their type-in traffic in web browsers, but they also generally rank extremely well for the term they include in the domain. This is partly because in backlinks on other sites, most people will link to the website using the domain name of the website which includes the keyword they intend to rank for. For example, Toys.com will naturally tend to have people link to it using the phrase “toys.com” like we just did. This results in the website ranking extremely well for the search term “toys” on Google, a term which has a great deal of search volume.

Geographic domain names can play an important role in localization of search results. If your business is based in a specific city, state, or region, you probably want to target people who live and shop in that area. For Joe’s pizza business in Seattle, a domain like SeattlePizza.com would help him rank well for search terms relating to Seattle and pizza. Once again, many backlinks will include the domain name as the anchor text just like generic domains, resulting in a potential boost in search engine ranking for those terms.

In most cases, due to domain availability and branding, the best option to balance branding and search engine ranking is a hybrid domain name that includes both the brand name and some keywords. If Joe isn’t willing to spend the huge chunk of change necessary to get Pizza.com and wants to have a more personalized domain name than SeattlePizza.com, options like JoesPizzaSeattle.com might be the best bet. This type of domain almost encourages others linking to the site to include keywords as anchor text. Anchor text will often end up being either the domain name itself, or something like “Joe’s Pizza in Seattle”. As a result, there’s search engine result benefits for terms relating to Seattle pizza, while also maintaining the brand name of Joe’s business.

Of course, the best strategy for Joe’s business would be to own multiple variations of the domain name. He would want to choose one domain name to make the primary website, but purchasing JoesPizza.com, JoesPizzaSeattle.com, JoesSeattlePizza.com, and others would also be a smart move. He would also want to think about buying the .NET, .ORG, and other extensions of his primary domain to make sure all his customers trying to find him online can do so.

As you can tell, there’s no straightforward answer on what the best type of domain name for your business would be. This is why if you’re planning your business name, it’s extremely important to consider whether matching domain names are available. If you can create a business name that includes keywords and is descriptive of your products or services and then pair that with the matching domain name, you can rank well for keyword terms while also building a brand name. Take us, for example. We at Domain.com feel fortunate to have a simple domain name that describes our services and also matches our brand. Not surprisingly, we also manage to rank fairly well in search engines for terms relating to domains and domain names.

Have you faced this type of dilemma when naming your business and choosing a domain name to match? Tell your story in the comments!

Find your .COM, .NET, .ORG, or a new .CO and start your business online today!

The Domain.com Blog

Most of the tasks involved with SEO are mundane and repetitive so outsourcing is a common issue that webmasters have to deal with. The following information can help you rank highly in the search engines without spending money o outsourcing and professional SEO specialists.

High Quality Backlinks

Building backlinks is perhaps the central component of raising your sites authority and being able to rank highly for any keyword you’d like. A backlink is any link on the web that points to your site, or a page on your site. The more backlinks your site has on the internet, the more popular and useful it appears to be from the perspective of a search engine algorithm. Most people focus on building thousands of backlinks in a short amount of time, often with automated softwares, only to find that their site has been ‘sandboxed’ and is no longer even ranked for their desired keywords. Not only does this cost money (either for investing in software or outsourced link building) it is also usually less effective than building fewer, more authoritative backlinks over a longer period of time. Instead of paying  people to build lots of backlinks for you, focus on the more powerful backlinks such as those posted in the profile pages or blog pages of high PR sites.

On Page Optimization

Many people overlook the importance of on page optimization, which consists of keeping the site updated with quality content and creating an efficient outgoing link structure the does not compromise the  PR of your pages. Adequate site navigation is also a very important aspect of on page optimization. Every page should contain links that point to another part of your web site, ideally using anchor text to denote the topic of the content in the navigational link. This will not only help search engines index your site more efficiently, it will also simplify the browsing experience for your site visitors. Other aspects of on page optimization include keyword placement/density, ad placement, and proper script usage. Unless you pay a content developer to handle these tasks for you, they are easy to perform and completely free.

Building Niche Partnerships

Another free way to enhance your SEO campaign and raise the amount of daily traffic your site receives is to begin building partnerships with other webmasters in your respective niche. Doing this will not only give you additional backlinking opportunities from related web sites, it will also bring an influx of traffic form these sites to yours on a daily basis, ultimately resulting in increased sales/conversions in the long term. Most sites have contact forms and/or ‘contact us’ pages that will help you get in touch with the webmaster and build a working relationship that can benefit both of your web sites.

Web Hosting Geeks’ Blog – News, Trends, Discussions.

To some, hiring an SEO may seem like the ideal situation.  The main function of SEO is to increase all aspects of visibility for your company’s website through various search methods such as local, video and image searches.  However, there are a few items to keep in mind before hiring a SEO for your website.

Reputable SEOs

One of the biggest concerns any website owner should have when hiring an SEO is the reputation of said SEO.  A website has to allow a SEO access to their HTML and server to allow them to complete their work.  It’s essential that the SEO is forthcoming with all information regarding website changes to their client.

If a SEO seems reluctant to discuss specific changes or doesn’t want to answer questions directly, this can be a clear indication that the SEO is not reputable.  In fact, some disreputable SEOs have caused websites to fail by redirecting ‘surfers’ to competitor’s websites through ‘bad’ links.  In addition to potentially sabotaging your website, you’re responsible for any actions committed by a company working for you.  This means you could be held liable for a disreputable SEO’s actions.  This is definitely a buyer beware market.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Ask yourself: Are you trying to increase web presence?  Do you want to branch out from traditional search engine hits?  It’s imperative that the SEO match (or as closely as possible) your vision and the SEO will work with you to make the vision a reality.

You should interview any potential SEOs for your company and have questions prepared for potential candidates.  These can range from questions about experience to asking for client testimonials or recommendations.  Beware of any company that approaches you about becoming your SEO because these are normally scammers.

Timing is Essential

If you are considering hiring a SEO, you should also consider the timing of the hire.  A SEO can help you create a website from the beginning by adding key phrases, tags, and links upon creation of your site.  This is the perfect time to have a SEO onboard.

Another optimum time to hire a SEO is at the beginning of a ‘remodel’ of an existing site or when launching a new site that is a spin-off of the main site.  Even if your company isn’t at either time, a SEO can still benefit your website.

You alone should make the decision to hire a SEO or do it on your own. If you choose to hire a SEO, now you know a few of the items to consider before hiring.

Web Hosting Geeks’ Blog – News, Trends, Discussions.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is simply a process of attempting to improve the overall visibility in search engines on the internet.  Each search engine has a slightly different algorithm that they employ to determine websites relevance in relation to a keyword or phrase searched for by a user.  This means that the approach of search optimization for each search engine is slightly different, but there are a set of core standards and approaches that are universal across them all.

Why is SEO important?

Think of the search engines like a traditional phone book. If you’re hungry and want a pizza, you’ll look up in the yellow pages pizza companies.  Often times, without realizing it, you go for the flashiest ad on the page, when determining the company you’re going to order from.  What if you were a pizza company owner who didn’t appear in the phone book? Chances are you wouldn’t get a large volume of business considering the aforementioned example.  This is why optimization is so important.

If you, as a business owner, sell the next big thing and everyone you know loves it, that’s great. But if no one else knows about it or can’t find it with any ease, you’ll lose a tremendous amount of potential business and traffic.  If search engines are the phone book of the internet and you’re not in it, and not easy to find, you probably won’t get much business.  This makes SEO a critical task for any webmaster, or business owner with a website.

Still not convinced? Consider This

A local restaurant opens up in your area.  The owner advertises on the television and in a few magazines every so often.  You decided to go out to eat at this new restaurant and you try to find the address on Google.com. You search for the restaurant but nothing comes up. You try another search engine and again, nothing relevant comes up. How many times will you do this before you find another place to eat?

The bottom line is you need to spend some time learning about SEO and how it affects your website. SEO can make or break a website in the long run.

Web Hosting Geeks’ Blog – News, Trends, Discussions.

Step 1: Choose The Right Words

Not all words are the same. First, make sure the words you are trying to target for searches are relevant to the content on your site. If you run a site about dog treats, it’s probably not a good idea to target lcd televisions as a keyword. Second, take a look at the amount of results already present for the words you decide on.  In all likelihood, the larger the result set, the harder it is to place well on the results of a search.   Third, don’t target too many words. It goes without saying; you should never have more words you are targeting than content pages on your site.  Fourth, choose words that are searched often enough that they are worth targeting. A good place to check out the relevance, competition and search frequency of words is Google Adwords.  Use the tool to identify potential words and find out what words you have decided to target look like. You might also find some good alternative words this way as well.  Once you choose a desired set of keywords, it’s time to start optimizing your site for these words.

Step 2: Keyword Related Content and Density

In the optimization community density is the same as frequency. So, a sites keyword density is simply the frequency it appears throughout a page and a site.  Search engines rate the relevancy of your site to a keyword based on the frequency it appears at in your site. So at first glance, most people think a higher density or higher frequency in the site or pages is a good thing.  While, there’s nothing definitive on what the optimal density is, there is a general understanding that anything over 5% is treated as spam by most search engines.  So, how do you check the density you have?  Take a count of all the words in the text on the page. Then count all the occurrences of a keyword in that text and divide that by the total words and you get your density for the page. If you don’t want to go through this process, there are a couple of tools for basic keyword density analysis like live-keyword-analysis.com.

There is another, more used method for keyword density analysis that takes in to account all the text a potential viewer can’t see.  Take for instance your Meta tags, image tags and hyper link anchors, these all have textual components as well, and in most cases they are only seen in the html portion of a site. More complex tools take in to account this text and keyword density, producing what is generally known as a more accurate projection.

Web Hosting Geeks’ Blog – News, Trends, Discussions.