Business Marketing Magazine Summer 2017 January 2016 Creating Clear Businesses | Page 7

your domain name has been on the
internet. Longevity is so simple, just
pick the right domain name the first
time and stick with it.

Why do name meanings in your domain name have to mean anything at
all? What does your URL have to do
with your SEO? How do you find the
best domain name?

Keywords

Before we even start looking for domain names at GoDaddy.com or whatever registrar that we are interested
in, let’s have a quick lesson in “keywords”. If you were ever going to pay a
professional to do anything in the SEO
world, I would have them pick your
keywords. If they truly are professionals, they will know the best rules for
keywords. Since this is not a keyword
tutorial, I will just keep it at: “You must
know what your top keywords are!”
This can be a bit hard because you
may think that you sell beautiful sacks,
and you want the world to know that
is what you sell, so you set your keyword at “beautiful sacks”. The problem
is the rest of the world does not care
how beautiful your sacks are when
they open google and start looking for
beautiful sacks. In fact, chances are,
less than 1% of all queries for decorative sacks will ever think of looking for
such a detailed term. They are going to
put in the term “Sacks” and then hope

that google can give them the best options. Make sure you know the statistics behind your keywords before you
start using them in your URL.
Once you have the right keyword,
put it to work for you. Picking your
domain name is a multi-step process
where you need to fulfill the needs of
multiple people, machines and purposes. Let’s go over the key steps I
would recommend if you were one of
my clients.

Step 1 - Make it descriptive.

As a SEO expert, I often get companies
that come to me that had a web developer who purchased their domain
name for them before they built their
website. The “web designers” were
just that: designers who made pretty
sites but didn’t take into consideration the needs of the business, the
target audience, SEO, or even marketing. They were interested in making
this pretty site with cool and flashy
things all over it. They have a pretty
site, with a domain name such as gcoa.
com. As a consumer, how exactly am I
supposed to know what “gcoa” is, and
exactly what it is that they do. If your
business targets a local audience, they
may understand this, but as your company expands to the next town over,
it may not be as obvious. If you sell
golf clubs, your URL should include: