How To Choose A URL

Choose a URL that is ideal for Marketing

The Benefit of selecting a keyword heavy URL.

There is a lot of debate surrounding the importance of having keywords in your URL. Internet marketers have differing view points on the value search engines place on embedded keywords within a domain name. My experience marketing web sites has taught me that keywords within a URL can benefit site ranking when combined with other SEO techniques. Let's take a look at how I like to embed keywords into a URL when completing Search Engine Optimization for my clients.

How Do You Choose A URL for Your Business That Will Help You Market Your Web Site on Search Engines?

This is probably one of the hardest and most important parts of developing an online marketing campaign. I am sure that you all know the basics!

A shorter URL is easy to remember
Make it memorable... try using alliteration or rhyming to help people remember your URL
Always use a dot come domain over dot net, dot biz, or dot info. (uless you can use dot gove or dot edu)

If you are lucky enough for someone to remember your URL, 9 times out of 10 they will type it in as a .com extension first in attempts to find you. People are creatures of habit and since .com is used more widely and engrained in our minds you need a .com address. The only time you should use a URL with an extension other than .com is when it is designed to be a landing page reached by search engines or email only... never for a page that you expect visitors to return to multiple times.

The gut reaction for most people is to acquire the URL with their business name in it. This is a good first reaction and something you should do if the name is available but this domain name should be used as a secondary URL for your site. If somebody knows your company name, knows how to spell it, and types it into the address bar of a Browser, you want them to find you. This URL will help brand your business or product name.

But unless you are a fortune 500 company, people may not know who you are, what your business name is or what services or products you offer. Since we want to use the internet to acquire new customers and grow your business, a URL of containing your company name would only help if someone knows who you are already. Your first instinct, usually to buy the URL of your business name or your personal name, may not, in the long run, be the best choice. A URL with your product or service keywords in it would be of greater value both for search engine ranking and for someone searching to hire or buy from you. Build your primary URL around your product or service and not your company name.

Buy two URLs... one with your business name and one with a major search keyword in it. Say your business name was 'Bob's TV Repair'. I would buy the URL bobstvrepair.com. But I would also buy a URL that has keywords in it that are targeted to commonly used search phrases (ie. tvrepairboston.com)

Attach both your keyword and business name URLs to your web site and use the keyword-heavy URL as the primary URL and the company name URL as the secondary URL. What this means is that you will use your business name URL (BobsTVRepair.com) for your email addresses, business cards, stationary, and print advertising. But for search engine marketing and every mention of your site online, use the 'keyword heavy' URL (TVRepairBoston.com). This URL will have keywords in it that online users would use to search for your product or service. Search engines pay close attention to the keywords in your URL and this will help your site rank higher. If we look at the example of tvrepairboston.com you can quickly see that this business is about TV repair in the Boston area. If I was living in Boston and wanted my tv repaired, I would most likely search online using the phrase 'TV repair Boston'.

My experience is that if your website has a keyword heavy URL, that it is much easier for your website to rank higher on Google for the keywords in your URL. If we wanted Bob to rank high for the phrase 'TV Repair Boston' it is much easier to do with a URL that has the exact words being searched for in the URL.

Key Notes: Purchase your URL for 2+ years. Search Engines do not want to list fly-by-night companies and will put more weight on your web site if you purchase a URL for two or more years. Our experience has shown that it is easier to get a web site listed in a search database and get it ranked higher if it has been purchased for at least 2 years. We have also not seen that a URL purchased for ten years will do better than one purchased for 2 years so there is no need to go crazy and buy a URL for a lifetime hoping to gain an advantage.

Buying a URL that has expired and has already been owned and used can be a plus for marketing. Google likes to see a URL that has been around for a while or that has the intention of being around. Google thinks of your URL as if it were a bottle of wine... it gets better with age. The longer the URL has been active the better it tastes to Google. Some previously used and now expired URLs already have a Google page rank... what better way to start off your online marketing than with an already Google recognized URL. I often scan the expired domain list on GoDaddy.com to look for any gems. Sometimes I can find one in my industry that is ripe for the picking and will immediately be able to generate a small amount of traffic.

It is getting harder and harder to find good URLs with keywords in them. Product and service names are being snatched up quickly. I follow these guidelines for choosing a URL to give myself the best chance at a high ranking.

1. First look for the URL with your keywords in it. What is your top selling product or service? Find a URL with this product or service as the first word in your new URL. (ie. widgets.com or widgetsbyJoe.com)

2. If that is not available try finding a URL with your main product as the secondary keyword in the URL and a complimentary word or location key word as the first word. (ie. Bostonwidgets.com, )

3. If none of those names are available look for a URL with dashes in it (widgets-Boston.com).

4. If that does not work try your top choice but with 3 characters in front of the URL. Google will not look at these three characters unless they make a word (its, and, dog, cat, etcâ€¦) Something like www.123widgets.com or www.abcwidgets.com or www.xyzwidgets.com If you are going to use this URL method you are best to use a first character of a '1' or 'A' as directory search engines will list websites in alphabetical order by the URL. Why not be first or close to the top?

5. Last resort is to buy a URL with an extension other than .com. (.net, .biz, .us, etc...).

How do we know that Google looks at the URL?

Honestly, this is just an educated guess. Again, internet marketers debate the importance of keywords in the URL. This is what I pay attention to... Do a search for just about any medium to high traffic keyword on Google and you will usually see 7 or more of the top 10 listings contain the keyword you used to search in the domain name. You will also notice that Google bolds the keyword in the domain name. By bolding it we know Google sees it and recognizes that it is there. I believe it gives a web site a bit of an edge to have a keyword in the URL. It won't guarantee you a top listing and a lot of site attributes go into determining a top Google ranking but every little bit helps.

Best of luck with your marketing!

Dan
2TheTopMarketing