What Would Make a Better Domain Name?

23 Jun 13 10:42 pm

Hi angelnewsletters,

You should choose a domain name suitable to the niche and products you're wanting to promote as an affiliate. And ideally one that is memorable and non-spammy-looking.

While your domain name can have an impact on your SEO rankings, I wouldn't use this as the sole reason for choosing a domain name. If I had to choose between a keyword-rich domain name that looked like www.how-to-stop-dog-digging.com and www.bobsdogs.com .... I'm going to go with Bob. (Although this one appears to be taken, hah!)

If you were thinking of doing PPC, and JUST bidding on keywords very closely related to your domain name, it might help you get clicks because the display domain name will closely match the keyword someone searched for.... but with such expensive cost per click (Close to $50! Holy moly!) I don't know why you would.

Maybe you could share how you were hoping to promote the site. Were you wanting to SEO or PPC? Are you promoting just one product / solving just one problem in a very narrow niche, or are there quite a few products to promote / problems the product will help solve?

23 Jun 13 11:05 pm

Your domain name doesn't really have much impact on what you pay for PPC. Your domain name doesn't really have MUCH impact on how you rank for a keyword in SEO. The average CPC for PPC doesn't have any impact on how much you're going to earn with your website. I'm a little confused as to why you've combined all these factors :)

I'd go out on a limb and suggest you just forget about keywords, CPC, monthly searches etc, and just choose a domain name that is suitable for your niche and the products you want to promote.

If you choose a .COM over a .NET, the only reason is that it is easier for people to remember, and people are less likely to type in your competitor's address when they want to visit your site.

But that's assume people are TYPING IN your address. Most people will come through a link, so they're just clicking.

[ I see you're deciding on the .COM (https://www.affilorama.com/forum/seo/what-it-is-better-a-com-w-low-searches-or-a-net-w-high-s-t24704.html) ... good stuff :) ]

25 Jun 13 8:48 am

I remember Google targeting EMDs sometime last year. Sam wrote a blogpost about it:
Is Google Now Penalizing Exact Match Domains?

What this teaches us is EMD is not everything. If your EMD site is ranking #1, then great. But I am sure that there more weighty factors that make your site #1, not just having an EMD.

I try to keep things simple when it comes to choosing a domain name. This is because I don't want to get stuck early on in setting up my site. When choosing a domain name I only keep three things in mind: descriptive, .COM and easy to remember/catchy.

Just consider Affilorama. It's not descriptive although the first part of the word does appear to be derived from affiliate marketing. It is a .COm and catchy. Our domain name is not EMD, but we are ranking #1 for the term affiliate marketing, the last time I checked. :)

Hope that helps. Have a good day!

26 Jun 13 4:44 am

If you could just let us know what sort of product you're wanting to promote, and how you're wanting to promote this website, our answers can be a lot more helpful!

* Are you planning to get traffic to your site via SEO?
* Are you planning to buy traffic through PPC?
* Are you wanting to promote an affiliate product?
* Are you interested in building a site to put AdSense on?

At the moment I'm still very confused about what you're trying to do.

I'm also not sure how you can call a keyword with a $47 CPC a "low competition" keyword. My understanding of PPC is that a CPC only gets that high by being competitive. Either that or your site is completely irrelevant to the search term and Google wants to strangle you with high CPC.

26 Jun 13 10:45 pm

Often its the keywords with low search volume that will convert better.

When people are typing in something more specific, it means they really know what they want and they're closer to buying than someone who is just looking for general information. So these very specific keywords (often with very low search volume) will often convert much better than a more general, high volume search term.

It could also mean that people don't know what they're doing... the way to check is to look at the sites who are bidding on particular keywords now, and then come back in a month or so. (Or longer, if it's really low search volume.) People generally won't keep bidding on something if they're losing money.

Some PPC advertisers specialise in going after these "long tail" search terms. You need to target a LOT of them to get good traffic to your site, and it's labor-intensive, but they're often lower-cost and higher-converting.

From an SEO perspective, instead of being "lower cost" you might find them easier to rank for. (Competition in the Google keyword tool refers to advertisers in AdWords, not SEO competition.) But again.... labor-intensive, particularly if you try creating a piece of unique content for each and every one.

25 Jul 13 12:26 pm

SEO experts often say that domain names that contain keyword phrases perform better on the search engines!