Domain Name SEO

Except for the addition of useful and relevant content to your website, it is important to set up a proper domain for it. It is the first thing everyone does while creating a website. It is important to choose the right domain name for your website. You can move to a new domain later but it is not as easy as it sounds. The domain name does the branding of your website without any need of opening it.

Domain name SEO is important and depends on the drive of traffic to your website. The main thing here is that you are just registering the domain for the website not buying it. There is no need of claiming ownership of any domain name. It just tells others about what services are you offering. These may include your brand names. Many practices help you to increase the ranking of your website on search engines, but of all of them, domain name can often have the biggest effect on your rankings.  If we compare it to meta tags, internal website linking, canonical tags, H tags, and other on page factors domain name is the biggest SEO factor in a lot of situations.

We have focused on some of the best practices for the domain name in this article.

What Are Domains?

A domain name is the address of your website that is readable and present in the URL box of a search engine. Every website has a unique domain and consists of the following parts:

The last two are collectively called the root domain. Top-level domains are suffixes and are used widely at the end of the domain name. Some of the popular TLDs include .com, .edu, .net, .org etc. There are more than 1,000 TLDs to choose from. Some of them are also associated with a specific country like .pk is for Pakistan and .uk is for the United Kingdom. These are called country top-level domains.

Let’s have a look at some other parts of a domain.

  • Subdomain

Subdomains are present before the root domain and are separated from the domain name by a period. You are free to create any of the subdomains and it is optional. The most used subdomain is www. But you can also add it according to the specific section of your website.

The main focus while creating a domain is the domain name. A subdomain can also be chosen later as said above it is up to you to choose it or not. So, you do not need to worry about it. In http://www.google.com/, www. is a subdomain that is separated from google which is a domain name by a period.

  • Domain name SEO

Domain names are essential to the address of the websites. These are purchased from a registrar and are specific to each website. They show the location of a website on the internet. Webmasters add keywords to it because the search engines use it as a ranking factor for Search Engine Optimization.

Many websites on the search engine result page appear with the same keywords in their domain name. it is your job to choose wisely and stand out from your domain name SEO from everyone else.

  • Root domain 

The root domain is a combination of the domain name and an extension Top-level domain name. both of these are specific and complement a website address. Subdomains are not the same for each webpage of the website but root domains are the same for each.

Google .com and save.net are some familiar root domains. The root domain of every website on the internet is unique. The uniqueness of the Domain Name SEO is essential for the higher ranking of your website.

Tips For the Better Domain Name SEO

A better and easy-to-use domain name will get maximum traffic to your website. Below are some of the tips for choosing a better domain name.

  • Make your domain name short

Short domain names are easy to remember and easy to type for a new one using getting access to your website. The advertisement of your website is easier if it is short with easy wording. The visitors will directly go to your website using the domain name and fulfill their needs. Here, processing fluency matters a lot.

It means that our minds remember the things most that are easier to think about. The most important factor here is its pronunciation in our minds. It is advised to use only alphabetic words with correct spelling as your domain name. Also, make it up to 15 to 20 characters long. Domain name SEO is better for those that are easier to read.

  • Do not use hyphens in your domain name

Some of the webmasters split their domain name using a hyphen if it consists of two words. It is not a great practice to do. Mostly the domain names with hyphens appear as the symbol of spam websites and also harm the readability of the domain of a website.

Sometimes it becomes essential to use the hyphen in the domain name because of the no way around it. So, it is advised to use just a single hyphen in this case.

  • The domain name must not be keyword-stuffed

Adding a keyword to the domain name is a good practice. It tells the audience about the content of your website and drives their attention to it. The keyword used in the domain name must be unique, catchy, and well related to whatever you are branding.

The domain names once played a key factor in the ranking of the websites on the search engine result page. Avoid stuffing keywords in your domain as it will harm the domain name SEO of your website. So, it must be better not to target your website like the one with low-quality content. Choose carefully and wisely.

  • Choose .com top level domains (TLDs)

Top-level domains are important to maximize the traffic to a website. Their quality cannot be ignored at any cost. Many options are available to the website for choosing the top-level domain after registering a domain name.  The SEO strategist advice to buy a .com TLD because they are better than the others.

If it is unavailable for your domain name, choose the alternative .cc TLD. Do not choose the cheap and unfamiliar TLDs like .biz or .ws etc. The traffic to these TLDs is not much and these are mostly connected to spam websites.

  • Prefer subfolders or subdirectories over the subdomain

According to Google, the ranking system works the same for both the data in subdomain and data in subfolders or subdirectories. However, data in subfolders or subdirectories is preferred by webmasters. It is advised by them to add worthy content to the subfolders.

  • Domain age

Many companies tell you about the age of domain being an important ranking factor of websites on the search engine. Age is not a major factor, but it can matter.

People change their domain just to avoid the trouble of expiring their older domain. It can matter if your domain is 1 month old or ten years old.  The ten year old domain is going to have more trust from Google, but this can be offset through other metrics.

  • Setting up redirects for moving domain

Before webmasters change the domain of their websites to the new one, it is essential to pay heed to some of the critical things. Setting up the redirects on every webpage is most important. Be aware of new URLs that have bad HTTP status codes.  For example, often times when changing a website design or moving to a new domain, a lot of 404 errors pop up and this can definitely have a huge effect on your SEO rankings.  These redirects are set up separately and redirect each subdirectory or subdomain to the corresponding pages on the new domain.

It is not good to redirect all the pages on the previous domain to the homepage of the new domain. Search for all the other necessary steps too and follow them properly while moving to a new domain to avoid any issue.

How To Choose a Perfect Domain Name?

Choosing a domain name might be interesting or difficult in many cases. Brainstorming is the best way to get a perfect domain name for your website but it must not be irrelevant to your business. Choosing two random words not related to your content is absurd. It does not make sense if your domain name is presenting it as a bookstore and you are selling clothes on it.

The keyword is the most important thing in the domain name SEO that attracts visitors. It tells them what should be the expectation from your website. It becomes easier for them to find their needed services from your website. Never add too many details to the domain name. One to two words domain is memorable and best for the website.

There are two types of domains used for the websites.

  1. A keyword domain name includes the keyword that is per your content
  2. The branded domain name has the company name in their domain like amazon.com

Choose among these two options. It is not always best to brand your business with its brand name. the keywords are more contributing to the increased interaction with a website.

Importance Of Domain Name SEO

The domain name does not directly contribute to the ranking of your website. There are many elements in the domain of a website that plays some of a part in the better ranking of the websites. These elements important for domain name SEO are:

  • Shortness of the domain name
  • Proper use of keywords
  • Ease of remembrance of the domain name
  • Branding of your content

Pay proper attention to these factors while choosing the domain name.

Effect Of Domain Migration and Domain Extension On SEO

Changing your domain name may have some negative impact on the search engine optimization of your website. The interaction of traffic to your websites may decrease that can cause the ranking of your website to lower down.

The top-level domain (TLDs) or the domain extensions do not affect the ranking of websites on the result pages of search engines in any way. It may matter in the case of country code top-level domain. The ccTLDs indicate the targeted country for your content.

.com TLDs

The .com TLDs are still preferred by webmasters. These are the most popular and widely used extensions. Although it does not affect the ranking of the websites, the websites with the .com domain extension have the most traffic drawn to them.

Due to the trust of the visitors on the .com extension, it becomes desirable for webmasters to buy and use the .com extension for their website.

SEO Domain Visibility

As every domain name includes a keyword, the SEO domain visibility measures the interaction of the audience with your website. It also shows the performance of your website as compared to the other competitive websites using the same domain name.

The SEO visibility shows that how much traffic your website got when a certain keyword was searched on the search engine. By the proper tracking, you can also track if any of the SEO problems are occurring.

The Verdict

The domain name SEO matters for the ranking of your website. so, it could not be ignored. Make it as simple as possible. Choose the right words for your domain name following the services that you are providing with your website. The main thing is that the domain name is not the only thing that matters for the ranking of your website. It is just a contributing factor for the higher ranking of the websites on the search engine result page.

The domain name that is stuffed with keywords and hyphens is not preferred by most visitors. Try to avoid them. A single or two words for the domain name are perfect if used properly. After choosing the domain name, ask yourself if it is appealing or not.

Keep all the ranking factors in mind while building a website to get organic traffic to your website. always do thorough research and use your best resources to get the desired output for your hard work.