Domain Names: Writing From Experience

Strategically speaking, a URL must be easily remembered both for its hook and length.

People remember sony.com, but nobody remembers nsyo.com if the 4 letters stand for a company’s initials.

However, people seem to remember ilovetheiraqiforeignminister.com (taken off oredi).

If you need a long one, restrict to just 3 most powerful keywords that describe your industry and string them together, dot com.

Domain Name Optimization is most effective for high-demand, low-competition keywords. Don’t put too much faith in DNO in the context of Internet Marketing, self-development, business or other money-making areas where so many people are jumping on right now.

The ideal combination of keywords is one which people remember as your brand name.

Should you use hyphen in a domain name?

The hyphen breaks up a longer domain name to reveal the major keywords that describe your website content or theme. This makes it easier for the visitor to understand and most importantly allows the search engine to detect your keyword for indexing right off the bat.

However, as search engine spiders get smarter and more subtle in what they want to qualify, the hyphen effect is less likely to influence any impact of the URLs on SE visibility. For URL branding purposes, it is also more viable to leave out dashes in between your URL’s name.

Do a test on yourself and on friends to measure up the degree of your URL’s ‘likeability’.

This is a hyperlink: http://freshresources.com

This is a text link: Fresh Resources

Anchor text refers to the keywords inside a hyperlink: http://www.freshresources.com/free-ebooks.html

In this case, the keywords are fresh, resources, free and ebooks.

Anytime someone do a search with any of the above keywords, freshresources.com stands a chance to show up on the results.

Text links and anchor text are the two most important criteria for how Google and other top Search Engines rank websites. Anchor text has particular influence on SE visibility of your URL.

I had an interesting experience searching for a site by Paul B. Farrell, a personal finance columnist.

Not noticing that his URL contains his middle name initial, I went straight to http://paulfarrell.com. Huh, Sutton Place: Great American Bar & Grille? That’s a restaurant in New York. I’m sure many surfers entered the restaurant by mistake. I checked the URL again and noticed the ‘b’, so went to http://paulbfarrell.com. Interestingly, B. Farrell’s site at least has an Alexa ranking of 659,168 while Sutton Place doesn’t have a number.

What does that say about the ‘online eminence’ of an obscure URL? No telling effect really.

Another poser: .com or .info?

Google-search for “video blogging”. What’s the No. 1 URL on the first page? videoblogging.info! If you scroll down and take a closer look, 7 out of the 1st 10 URLs on the list does not end in .com. Intriguing isn’t it?

We do feel that there’s only so much you can do with DNO. If you happen to have a lousy domain name in your hands, don’t fret; you just might be able to compensate with SEO. Anyway, Google (and with more major SEs to follow suit) no longer ranks sites based on technicalities, but quality, history and integrity. The better question to ask yourself in the long run is: “2 years from today, will the search engines begin to show respect for my wonderful site?”

Well, 2 years from today, will you still be doing the same business? Will it expand and prosper? Mind you, 80% of all businesses around the world close down in 2 years.

On a sidenote, according to a survey by Jupiter Research and iProspect, 41% out of 2,369 people change search engines or search terms if they do not find what they are looking for on the first page. At most, they will go through 3 pages before giving up.

Knowing very well that more than 90% of the time, you are not likely to appear on first page overnight, this surely sounds hopeless, so how much more still can we do about SEO? Perhaps not much, but we shouldn’t worry.

Again, we are reminded of Einstein’s quote: “You can’t solve a level of problem at the same level of thinking.”

If you keep checking how much % keyword density is in your article page, you are not operating in Einstein mode.

If you keep checking how many new and returning visitors you have every week, you are not operating in Einstein mode.

If you keep checking how much you have earned in Adsense every single day, you are not operating in Einstein mode.

If you keep checking whether your item is sold in eBay or not, you are not operating in Einstein mode.

If you keep checking your bank balance every now and then, you are not operating in Einstein mode!

While testing and tracking results is important, the routine must be balanced with a vision, plan and action. Victor Hugo said, “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”

Substantial progress is a crucial key to daily life advancement. Sometimes it’s good to put thoughts about certain less important things aside and re-focus on what is the real prize of your life.

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