Friday, January 2nd, 2009
How important is a domain name? Will the right one catapault you into the top five search results for your most coveted keywords?
Probably not.
Over on the Bank of America’s Small Business Resources forum, I answered a question from someone looking for advice on choosing a domain name. Actually, the original question came from someone who was wondering if their search engine optimization efforts would be boosted significantly by choosing a different domain name:
I have been doing quite a bit of SEO research over the past few weeks, and come to find out, I’ve been doing things wrong! It seems that one of the most important elements to SEO is having your main keyword or
phrase in your domain name! When I did my initial research 5 years ago when we were first building our web site, I actually read that this may be a plus–but now I think it is being quite a huge deterrent from us
truly maximizing our web traffic.What do you all think? Is this important or not?
I chimed in with my two cents’ worth and said a good domain would help but it’s not enough :
Content is king. If you have great content, you will rise in the search rankings.
A good domain name is a plus but I don’t think it will land you on the first page of results.
Look at it from Google’s perspective: if someone finds your site through a keyword search, Google keeps track of whether the visitor looked at your site for a second or two and then bounced back to the search results to find something else. They also keep track of whether the visitor stayed on your site and clicked around on a bunch of pages.
A good domain name might help you bring in a visitor to your site but obviously it won’t be enough to keep them there.
Google interprets the bounced visit as a sign that your site does not have much useful information for the person searching for those keywords. Therefore, they will adjust your ranking accordingly because Google believes that your site is not useful to people searching on those keywords.
Keep in mind that I don’t work for Google and of course I have no intimate knowledge of all the stuff that goes into their alogrithms. But, in my experience, the above scenario helps explain why some sites do better than others in the search rankings. Inbound links, descriptive title tags and alt tag descriptions are other items that appear to be important as well.
I invite you to read the rest of the thread. Lots of people posted interesting thoughts on SEO strategies.
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Thursday, January 1st, 2009
What better way to kick off the new year than to start a new blog!
All kidding aside, I’m proud to begin a new chapter in the life of Pollak Web Design. We’re a young company but we’ve got years of experience behind us and a blog is the perfect way to share what we’ve learned.
Here’s what you can expect: tips on marketing your Web site, observations on the state of the online economy (i.e. who’s making money and how), advice on planning an ecommerce venture and ideas for finding your niche audience. I’m also a web design aficionado who loves to check out unusual layouts and online composition.
Seen a site you think I should check out? Drop me a line or post a comment below.
Posted in Company News | No Comments »