Domain Name Questions

[saintkelley]

Say I am a home builder. I have a domain name, johnsmithbuilder.com.

I also own a domain name based on the county that I build houses in: graftoncountyhomebuilder.com.

For advertising reasons, I would like to use my company name, johnsmithbuilder.com.

But for SEO reasons, would it be better (it more hits, more results) to make the graftoncountyhomebuilder.com my site, with the dns of johnsmithbuilder.com simply pointing to it?

Or another option, should I have both domains active and hosted, with the same exact content copied to both sites?

Thank you in advance for any insight that you can offer me.

[BeckyW]

Having one site point to the other is definitely better than having duplicate sites. As for which domain name is better to use for the site, I'd suggest using the one you want people to use. The titles of your pages, page content, and site architecture are all far more important than domain name, for search engine optimization.

That said, having a domain name containing words that people search for will give a slight seo advantage. This article gives a good explanation (wish I could say I'd written it!).

I'm a big believer in the "Content is King" approach to search engine optimization - rich, helpful content that people will want to read (and link to), presented in a way that is visible and understandable to search engines.

Don't forget to build some inbound contextual links from reputable, well-ranked sites (such as industry associations) - those make a huge difference to your search engine ranking.

[acwebguru]

You can run two sites simultaneously but do not use the same content because it be considered as a case of duplicate content . Do not copy and paste meta title, meta description and even the design. I would rather suggest you use geographic specific keywords in graftoncountyhomebuilder.com and general keywords in johnsmithbuilder.com.

[phanio]

Not much more I can add then to restate - use both - not duplicate - some will search one way some will search the other.

Build them both differently - and see which one has better results -

[jmacek07]

If I were in your shoes and I did not have the time to build two websites as being suggested I would say go with the geographical title if there is much competition in your area for your keyword. So if there are several other home builders in your area already ranking for the keyword graphton county home builder then having that in your domain will give you an edge and I personally have seen results much faster when the keyword I was optimizing for was in my domain.

However if there is no competition out there already ranking for your keywords then I would say go with johnsmithhomebuilder.com as in this case you're really just going to need some relevant content and a link or two in order to get ranked.

[Logan]

I would do one site using johnsmithhomebuilder.com with seo targeted for the broader market plus a substational section under a subdirectory (johnsmithhomebuilder.com/graftoncounty/) with content about targeting the geo location. Once that was well established for the location keywords and you have tested your results for the broader market I would continue working on improving the non local keywords. If the geo location results are providing a good return once established, then I would create a new unique site with graftoncountyhomebuilder.com to further expose your business in the search listings for the geo keywords. This would potentially provide you multiple results for those local keywords. If I was doing this, I would not associate the two domains together in any way (i.e. domain registration, hosting, ip, html, content, in bound links, links between sites, etc).

I would not do two sites at once, its enough to get one right the first time. As you achieve a benchmark of success with the first site, then consider if your return is worth taking what you've learned and establishing a new successful site. Two unsuccessful sites, because your efforts/focus are spread between the two is never worthwhile.

For advertising reasons, I would like to use my company name, johnsmithbuilder.com

That is very relevant, and reason enough in itself. I've never experienced where the domain name was a hindrance in achieving a top ranking. Other factors, such as quality in bound links can overcome any weight the domain name itself can carry on its own, imo.

However if there is no competition out there already ranking for your keywords then I would say go with johnsmithhomebuilder.com

If there really is that little of competition, I'd do further research of the keywords popularity as my experience is it is rarely relevant as no one/very few searchthat keyword.

Good question saintkelley! Welcome aboard

[Tom Lindstrom]

I agree.A keyword rich domain name is much better.I would go with graftoncountyhomebuilder.com and write related content regularly.

[torka]

The choice of a domain name is a marketing decision, not an SEO decision. Domain name has little to no effect on SEO.

In my experience, so-called "keyword rich" domains don't make as much difference as some people claim. It's the links that point to the domain that potentially give it value, not the domain name in and of itself -- and even there, it's the anchor text of the links that really makes the difference.

So the only time the domain name generally carries any appreciable weight is if somebody links to your site using the domain name as the anchor text of the link. But since in most cases they're going to link with the name/title of the website rather than the "raw" domain name, you'd do a lot better to worry about what keyword you include in your "official" site title than in the domain name itself.

Besides, the domain name in question isn't keyword rich to start with, unless the keyword is "graftoncountyhomebuilder". In order for the separate words to be recognized, they have to be separated with hyphens: grafton-county-homebuilder.com or grafton-county-home-builder.com.

Beyond that, experienced SEOs who know their stuff know there's little to no value in optimizing every page of a site for the same keyword or phrase, which is essentially what you'd be doing if it turned out the domain name did have a significant effect (which it doesn't -- I'm just saying).

Use whichever domain you think will work better for you from a marketing standpoint and 301 redirect the other to that one. As Logan pointed out, trying to build out and optimize two websites at once is a lot more work and likely won't bring you sufficient additional return to justify the additional effort.

--Torka

[BeckyW]

Another thing to consider - that domain has to fit on business cards, where you list your website and email address, and people have to type it! I know that's not an SEO thing, but it is important to consider.

[homebizseo.com]

I think the SEM will have a greater effect on search results than domain name..


The offline business I am in I use all the surrounding cities and the type of business it is as an anchor text.

I only drop about 20 blog comments for each keyword phrase I am targeting.

I rank on the first page for everything I have targeted thus far.