I. Building a SEO-Friendly Website

1. Choosing a domain name

Selecting the right domain name for your website is important for your future success for a variety of reasons. Not only does the domain name need to logically relate to your business and be fairly easy for people to remember, your choice of domains can have a very real effect on your placement within search engines.

Keyword Importance
The actual domain name of your website may be included as one of the factors considered by the large search engines in determining whether your web site is relevant for a specific keyword. As a result, including the most-searched keyword for your business in the domain name itself can increase your sites relevance in search result pages (SERPs). The PromotionWorld Keyword Suggestion Tool is a great resource for figuring out which keywords are the most important for your business, and thereby can be considered as an important part of your domain name.

There are of course many examples of seemingly irrelevant domain names that perform exceptionally well on search engines. The domain name of Google is a perfect example. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine a websites relevance, so remember that this is just one of many factors.

AAAlphabetically Speaking
Since the dawn of the phone book, there have been countless new businesses created with odd-sounding names designed to push their listing to the top of the page. Most listings in search directories also use alphabetical order for sorting websites, so there are now countless domains that start with numbers or the letter A. A quick search of Google shows the Army Aviation Association of America, American Association of Advertising Agencies, and AAAA Surplus all jockeying for position. This is not a key factor for search engine optimization, though. The value of creating a great brand exceeds the advantage of being the first on alphabetical lists with a nonsensical domain name.

Think Branding
Building a great brand should be a primary goal of most online businesses. The almighty Brand is among the companys core assets. Since a strong presence on the Internet is becoming more and more important for even traditional businesses, the right company name and URL choice can be vital to your businesss success. Choose a name which is easy to remember, easy to pronounce, and does not infringe on existing trademarks.

The goal of corporate branding was eloquently summarized by the band Cake:

   We are building a religion
   We are making a brand
   Were the only ones to turn to
   When your castles turn to sand

An easy-to-remember domain name is a valuable tool for your business promotion and recognition. The name doesnt need to have a great meaning if you are committed to building a brand, then your Google could be FUBAR without a lot of work.

Including hyphens in a domain name has its pros and cons. A well-placed hyphen can help compound words to appear more clearly to people, but it can have a negative affect on your overall branding strategy. This is just one of the many reasons why Coca-Cola can be found at Coke.com as well as Coca-Cola.com and CocaCoke.com.

Marketing Niche
Understanding your potential market is vital to a good understanding of the value of a potential domain name. Find out who your competitors are in the market first. Than consider how you will try to differentiate yourself youre business from your competition. Knowing your marketing niche will help you to navigate the vast jungle of potential domains. Cheap-Cowboy-Boots.com is a very different positioning statement than Best-Cowboy-Boots.com, for example. One of the best ways to evaluate how you will position your company on the market is to use the PromotionWorld Keyword Suggestion tool to find the keywords your potential customers are using today to try to find similar businesses.