In determining how domain value impacts your website's SEO, key questions are to be asked. What makes a domain valuable and how does this value affect your SEO? Understanding this cause and effect, helps you to assertain enough knowledge to identify and register your domain name for the world of SEO. So here are 4 ways to create valuable domain names and 3 reasons way they impact your SEO.
What's a domain?
First, let’s understand what a domain name is. Your domain name is the location of your website. In other words, it’s your website’s address. Hypothetically speaking, your domain may have a name such as “Hair.com” and may point to an IP address “162.88.216.967.” To avoid remembering this long IP address which is not easy or memorable for any advertising purpose, you have something called your domain name. Another thing to know – before you look at what makes a domain valuable, is that the domain name takes two forms. The first is the website’s name (Hair) and next is the domain extension (.com). To learn more about domains, check out this blog post.
4 Ways to create domain value
1. Make the domain name memorable
To create a memorable domain, uniqueness is important. You want to incorporate your brand name here but make sure it is not easily confused with another brand. Shortness is key as well as easy spelling of your domain name. This especially means that you want to avoid hyphen and numbers. Remember, people searching for your particular content are looking for answers, so ensure your domain name creates and fulfil those expectations.
2. Use Keywords in domains
The best practice now is to use keyword in some aspect of your domain name but do not create an exact match if you want to accomplish a good domain value. For instance, keyword “Luxembourg hosting,” and your domain name is luxhosting.lu. The keyword is still present but not an exact match which makes it a balanced name. Reason behind not making your domain rich in keyword is that the practice is commonly frowned upon in recent times.Exact Match Domains, EMDs were making their domain keyword dense but mostly were producing low quality content. Google has made changes that have de-prioritized sites with keyword-rich domains that aren't high-quality. Now, you need along with a keyword fitting domain, quality content, authority backlinks, etc., to help with ranking your domain. Try using SEO tools to help identify these features for your website. Again, keyword ranking gives value to your domain but do so judiciously.
3. Choose a top level domain extension
Top-level domain (TLD) is the formal name given for the suffix that appears at the end of a domain name. Some examples include:- .com -.net - .org - .edu While there are over a thousand TLDs to choose from, to add value to your domain name, it is best to use .com. This extension has become a leading reputable suffix that consumers associate confidence with. Furthermore, if this is not available and you do want this to be your first preference, then go for others such as .net, .org or .co. Don’t go for low quality TLDs, they are less trafficked and may be more associated with spam. Significant value is also added by country code top level domains or ccTLDs. These ccTLDs are associated with specific countries or territories. For example, .uk (United Kingdom) or .eu (European Union), these increase your domain value in your country or region and they help SEO to rank you in that specific country or region.
4. Express Caution with Trends
Even though others are following a trend such as purposeful misspellings, hyphens and low quality TLDs, it might not mean that this trend is right for you and your website’s purpose especially for start-up businesses.
3 Reasons why domain value affects your SEO
1.Domain names markets a business’ website
The goal of Search Engine Optimization is to provide valuable answers to your questions, follow search engine best practices and keep things fresh. After learning about what makes a domain valuable, you can appreciate now why a valuable domain name would match searches made on the internet by customers. For a website to rank, it will need a right match keyword domain, quality content, backlinks etc. These will increase your website’s search engine ranking since it will help to produce higher click throughs. From this angle you can see the reason behind keyword ranking and its ability to positively boost your SEO.
2. Good domains boost user perception
A good domain name doesn’t just stop there. It actually helps to boost your user perception which equals to more clicks and increased SEO ranking. This is the reason why you want to use a reputable TDL like .com, use your brand in the domain name where possible and provide easy to say and understand domain name. These features encourages relevance, credibility and quick information. Remember that if users believe you are credible, google will too. For example, Mikeshardware.com, quickly communicates that the site has something to do with hardware. Someone searching for hardware supplies may very well see the relevance of this website name and finds its domain name credible.
3. Domain name helps you reach the right audience
Having a geo-specific extension such as .eu which applies to the European market, also helps you to reach the right audience. Consumers who use the internet to find local establishments would find you especially since google offers local search engine optimization.
Conclusion
Understanding how domains impacts your SEO website optimization is very important for your business. Creating domain value increases click-through, user perception and local ranking in specific countries and regions. With these positive impacts, more thought is undoubtedly needed when creating a domain.
