Domain Names Explained In Detail
Domain Names Explained In Detail
A Website Name Can Make or Break Your First Year On the Internet!
In this blog, I want to clarify something that I am always writing about and it has come to my attention that I'm glossing over a very important part of it.
OK, I always tout the importance of a Domain name. I truly think it can make or break a new businesses first year on the web. And when I mention it, I always say to use keywords in the domain name that will get searched by people that you want to find you.
I re-read some of the blogs and I see that from the point of view of a beginner to the web, this is loaded with "fuzzy math". The advice just assumes that the reader knows what I mean by "searched" and "find you" and "keywords". So today I'll break down the concept. Here goes:
"KEYWORDS" in your Domain Name
When you open your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome... or something like them) to view the Internet, or to "go online", it will take you to whatever home page it takes you to. Let's say though, that today you didn't open the browser and go online to read whatever home page you have. Today, you are going online to find a sweater for your dog! So, at the top of the browser somewhere is a "search" box where you can type in your searches. You click on the box and type in "Dog Sweaters". Those two words will be used by a search engine to bring you back results that will list websites that may help you in your quest for a new dog sweater. They are called keywords because they are words that are "key" in helping a business get found on the Internet when people do searches like this.
The search engine only wants to give you website links that are relevant to your search. If they do a good job, and you find what you want real fast, you will always use their search engine when you are looking for stuff. And when people use their search engine, they make money!
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The search engine puts up a list of results for me. Websites that it thinks will be the best for me to visit to learn about "dog sweaters", and today at the top of the list is petsmart.com. That's really no surprise, because the words "dog sweaters" are all over their site in certain places and they have a lot of other dog related content on their site. Plus... their site gets a great deal of traffic, telling the search engine that other people like the site a lot and find it useful, so you might also.
OK, so here's the lesson! Petsmart.com does NOT have the words "dog sweaters" in their domain name. Their domain name is just Petsmart.com. So why are they number one in the search results? Because they have a massive site with a great deal of content related to dogs and the sweaters they wear AND they have a lot of traffic. It would take a lot to rank higher than petsmart.com when it comes to any keywords that are pet related. But... if you look down on page one near the bottom (at least on this day) there is a domain named chillydogsweaters.com.
That site, chillydogsweaters.com, has NO business being on page one. It's a modest site that looks like it was made by a business owner or on a shoestring budget at best. And it has no real SEO work that I can detect at first glance, yet it is on the first page of results given to me by Google when I searched "dog sweaters". The ONLY reason this site is on page one is because the words "dog sweaters" are in the actual domain name. Google and the other search engines give a lot of weight to that. They figure that no one is more about dog sweaters than the people who actually bought a domain name with the words in it! And they are right 99% of the time. Really, why would anyone buy a domain name with those words in them unless they had at least something to do with dog sweaters.
Because the good folks at Chillydogsweaters.com had the good sense to buy that domain name, they are on page 1 of the search results for the keyword phrase "dog sweaters". Anytime anyone in the world searches for dog sweaters, they will see that link and might click on it. They are probably getting big numbers of visitors to their website because they are on page one of Googles search results for the keyword phrase "dog sweaters"!
Now, you can apply this logic to literally anything. My friend is a motivational speaker and he has the words "motivational speaker" in his domain name!
I hope this helps explain why it is so critical to think through the process of buying your domain name. If you have more questions, use the "Ask The SEO Scouts" button at the top of this page and shoot me the question. I'll answer as best I can!
All the best,
The SEO Scout
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