JeffAshby.com

These days, any SEO person is looking for an edge.  We are looking for that silver bullet that will propel us to Google’s first page with as little effort as possible.  In order to find anything like this, I have gone as far as speaking with employees of Google to find out what their take is on SEO shortcuts.  Obviously I haven’t been able to find anything.  There is no secret META tag.

However, I have found something almost as good: Your Domain Name.  Having the right domain name can really give you a head start in rankings.  The right domain is a keyword rich domain, or hopefully, your main keyword phrase.

Let’s look at an example from some of the research I have been doing with my new company Anthro.  One of the products that Anthro pushes is radiology furniture (and I really have no idea what that actually is).  Their main competitor AFC Industries bought the domain radiologyfurniture.com.   If you search for that keyword phrase in Google, their website shows up in the first position.  If you look at backlinks, radiologyfurniture.com has a total of 9 backlinks while the competitors have much much more, but aren’t ranking as well.

Another example is my new venture watchfilipinomovies.com.  My main keyword phrase is “Watch Filipino Movies.”  As of this morning, I am ranked on the first page only after having the site active for a few weeks and doing almost no link building.

Obviously a domain without incorporating other SEO fundamentals won’t help you much in the long run, but a solid keyword rich domain as well as great title tags, and great content, and supporting links is a recipe for success.  The power of a good domain is strong enough that for someone starting a new website should definitely do SEO keyword research and pick the right domain even before worry about site content.

For well established websites, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend changing out the domain with a new one (although it can be done successful if you read my earlier post on Successfully moving Your Website).  Also a lot of well established sites have a lot of brand recognition and identity.  We definitely don’t want to lose that with a new domain.  What I would suggest was shown in my first example of domain ranking success.  That is, building a separate site all about that specific keyword that can help give supplemental information that will support your main website.  This could be a new domain (and website) for each site product line, or maybe a new site for a best selling product.

The point of this is to make sure to take your domain into account when you are going to start an SEO project.  I have yet to really test variations of keyword phrases for a domain, but I will definitely update you when I do.