Getting a domain name is the very first step towards starting your own online journey. After that, you will need to begin working towards establishing your website and making it successful. To achieve that, we’ve got a few other helpful articles posted on this blog, such as Best Practices of Using WordPress Tags and Categories for SEO and Best On-Page SEO Techniques for Organic Traffic. Employing SEO tactics can help your new domain and website get listed in top search results of popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. Targeting the top spots of the search engines through SEO is practically a requirement to be successful online these days. That’s because most internet users now rely on search engines to find websites and make their buying decisions. So, now that you know why SEO is important you might be asking yourself, does my domain name have any effect on SEO? That’s the question we’ll be answering today.
How Does My Domain Name Affect My Website’s SEO?
Search engines use many different ranking factors and signals to evaluate the quality of a domain name. Previously, keywords in domain names were a major ranking factor and thus, search engines used to give very high weightage to websites with extremely keyword rich domains. In fact, at one time many exact match domains (EMDs) would perform much better than other, more traditional domains. Nowadays, domain names with targeted keywords can still perform well, but only to a certain extent. Google and other search engines have become smart enough to take other factors into consideration when ranking websites. Apart from keywords, the most important factors that determine the SEO value of a domain name are its recognition as a brand and authority. Google gives high preference to domain names that are an authority in their field. To be precise, Google likes a domain name that has established itself as a brand.
How To Choose an SEO-friendly Domain Name
Choosing a good SEO-friendly domain name for your website isn’t difficult. Just follow the same rules you would when creating any new online brand.
Memorable & Relevant – Your website’s domain name must be easy to remember and relevant to your industry. Memorable and relevant domain names are easy to remember and can stay in the user’s memory longer.
Short – A short domain name is easy to remember, hard to misspell and also great for branding. Most top websites have an average of just 9 letters in their domain name. Also, try to avoid using hyphens in the name because this is both confusing and can be seen as spammy by search engines.
Unique – A domain name that sounds unique is easy to brand. On the other hand, domain names that are more generic cannot make the same powerful impression. Unique names like Google, Facebook, and Pinterest are highly impressive and stand out from the crowd.
Authoritative – Try to refrain from choosing domain names with words like “best” or “top.” Why? Because if you need to tell people that you are the best, then you are most likely not. Authority is built, not bought. These terms can also hamper your brands promotional efforts.
Conclusion
As far as SEO is concerned, the domain name you choose can have some impact on your SEO efforts, but not nearly as much as it did at one time. Still, you should choose your domain name wisely and then focus on making it authoritative and a brand because these can actually give your website an even bigger boost in today’s internet world.
