Domain names have a major impact on SEO. If you don’t have a website, then it is very important to choose the right domain name. So, in this article, I am going to explain how you can pick a good domain name strategically for better SEO.

A perfect domain name can help you impress your clients if you run an SEO agency. Plus, it also makes the AdSense approval process easier if you are an individual trying to monetize your blog via advertisements.  Every company must go online with their own website to reach a global audience and their domain name is what represents them. This article is perfect for an entrepreneur who is trying to establish a new company and establish its online identity.

How To Choose A Good Domain Name For Website

Domain has a huge impact on a website’s online presence including the CTR (Click Through Rate), referring links, social media, search results, advertisements, etc. So each & every part of this article is important. If you want a perfect domain name for your business, don’t skip any section below. Let’s talk about the types of domain names based on SEO terms.

Exact Match Domains (EMDs)

An EMD is a domain name that exactly matches with target keyword or phrases. For example, if we target the keyword ‘best hotels in KTM‘ then its EMD would be ‘besthotelsinktm.com‘ and so on. Some real examples of exact match domains are webhosting.com, history.com, plumber.com, clothes.com, etc. The keyword that these sites want to rank for is actually their domain.

Exact Match Domain give ranking authority within Google or any search engine. They are recognized immediately and receive direct navigation traffic. They were easy to rank in the past but in September 2012, Google released a filter update regarding EMDs. New sites having ‘exact-match’ keywords in the domain name but containing poor quality content are affected by the algorithm. Matt Cutts, a Google engineer, confirmed this via Twitter.

Google recognized that having the same keywords in URL does not mean that the website has quality content. So they released EMD update & sites are now being heavily affected. But it does not mean that such sites do not rank anymore. It’s just that they have to publish good quality content. So if you get an EMD and publish good meaningful content like the one you are reading right now, you could rank way faster than the other branded domain names.

You should be careful while selecting an EMD because people have left trusting them due to past events. Webmasters abused these types of domains a long time ago. They created fake websites that were never an actual small business. So the public now considers EMDs a scam. People have several thoughts about such domains and want to rather buy from another branded domain name. But ranking is going to be easy with the help of EMDs if you follow Google Guidelines properly by publishing awesome content.

Partial Match Domains (PMDs)

The domain that contains one target keywords in it is known as Partial Match Domain (PMD). For example, if we target the keyword ‘Mobile Repair shop in Kathmandu‘, we might want to visit ‘MaheshRepair.com’ because there is at least one keyword in it which is ‘repair’. That is what people want, contact a brand & solve their problems. Therefore, PMDs are very heavy Google Ranking Factors if you use them strategically.

Branded Domain

A branded domain name does not contain any targetted keyword in it, which is what usually Google has started to look for. They naturally try to rank and establish their business. You can invent a new name and register your domain under it. Such domain names are creative and unique for business.

We can still rank for a targetted keyword through branded domains by adding targetted keywords in titles, meta description, body and other parts of the website. That is filed under various aspects of On Page SEO.

Buy Expired or Expiring Domain

You should start with expiring or expired domains because they are already SEO boosted. They may also have better backlinks profile developed in the past. So you may get immediate rankings with fewer efforts, especially on the local area. The domain is also going to get indexed very quickly after you upload a website on it.

The expired domains can save time with the SEO credit they have. Getting backlinks is difficult especially if you are a new blogger. Buying a domain with good backlinks will put you in bigger positions than a fresh domain with no backlinks. You can find an expired domain through various websites like expireddomains.net (free), DomCop, freshdrop, and other similar sites. If you are a busy guy and don’t have time to find domains manually, you can go to Fiverr and pay someone to do the job for you.

Using ‘Expired Domains’ website, you can filter by different criteria there. The best practice is to filter by the oldest domain because it is going to index a lot better in Google. You can also search for phrases that contain a city name if you run a local business but it is going to be hard to find one.

a list of partial match domains for the keyword ‘Kathmandu’ as provided by expireddomains.net. They are sorted by year of registration.

While you are buying an expired domain, it is a crucial thing to check key factors like Trust Flow (TF), domain authority (DA), page rank score (PR), spam score as well as the price. If a domain is found having too many backlinks, it is important to check where they are coming from and their anchor text. The anchor text of backlinks should look natural and not spammy. You can check for such factors using a special paid tool called ‘Ahrefs‘.

Final Words

Since you have come this far I want to share a few additional tips about picking a good domain name before finishing up. They are listed as follows:

• Make sure that the domain you pick is easy to remember – like do not use any difficult phrases, hyphens, characters, or numbers.
• Keep the domain name as short as possible.
• Always select a top-level domain extension (.net, .org, .com)
• Do not register a domain under a person’s name or ccTLD, for business sites only.

Before leaving, I want to say thank you for taking the time to read this article. Be sure to check our other posts & if you find this helpful, leave a comment right now. Until then, this is your boy Max, signing off. [c u]