The
Right Domain Name
I either make
my domain names define themselves exactly or I think of a creative way to state
its purpose. Your best bet is to think of a name that is an extension of who
you are.
A short and
easy to remember URL is friendly to word-of-mouth marketing. Would you feel
better referring a friend to seobook.com or
seo-search-engine-optimization-marketing-e-book-book.com? Which would be easier
to remember and say? If you make a message hard to spread, then it will
probably spread at a slower rate.
Often times it
is worth it to buy multiple domain names, even if you do not use them all. By
securing multiple domain names you can decide to use some of your secondary
domains to cover similar thematically-related topics AND prevent competitors
from purchasing the name.
Within six
months of my starting the SEOBook.com website, someone was already spamming me
trying to sell me SEOBooks.com. I should have spent the additional $8 to
register that domain from the start. You also may want to buy a generic name
and the domain name that matches your business, and direct them both to the
same location.
I do not
recommend buying multiple domain names exclusively for deceptive practices.
Many of my sites are about SEO, but you can break ideas down to their core and
make useful sites in less competitive markets.
For example,
one site I own is Search-Marketing.info. This site is similar to the contents
of this e-book, although the site is somewhat dated. That site is not a
well-branded name. I had many concepts on that site that later were extracted
and made into their own sites:
- I had a blog at Search-Marketing.info; the blog was not successful. I moved the blog from that site to SeoBook.com, and it has likely become one of the top half dozen most popular blogs in the SEO industry.
- I had a directory list on Search-Marketing.info. I decided to turn that list into a directory of directories, and created that idea at DirectoryArchives.com.
- I listed some bad SEO practices on my Search-Marketing.info; I decided to turn that idea into BlackHatSEO.com.
Each of the
last three sites occasionally spikes in popularity and helps give me a
multi-brand approach. I would not be nearly as successful if I kept all of
those ideas inside my first site.
When
you spin out micro domains, they allow you to try to be humorous or different
without necessarily having as much impact on your root brand as if you said and
did the same things on your main business site.
There are also
tactical business reasons for using multiple sites. For example, if what you
are doing might get you sued, it may make sense to put it on a
non-income-generating site to try to make it easier to get free legal help if
the lawsuit is bogus.
Some
businesses will require brand development to become successful. Being a branded
SEO makes it far easier to charge a fair rate for my services than if I was
unbranded. My original website (http://www.search-marketing.info) is really a
weak brand and was a huge mistake.
I
like the idea of creating things that I think add long-term value to the web,
so I usually opt for branded names over generic names.
There is more
than one way to skin a cat, and the same idea can be said for picking a domain
name. If you aim to extract long-term profits and want to make the site you are
working on become your career, then you want to pick a name that is not overly
generic.
Before you pick a name or start building sites, you
should decide what your goals are for the site. If you are
unsure what type of site you want to make or why you want to make it, you may want to participate in web
communities to find problems that need solutions and create a personal site
until you find what you want to do.
Note: This is an advanced SEO technique most webmasters do not need to do.
With how many
pages there are on the web, quality will usually win over quantity. With that
being said, sometimes it will make sense to have multiple, similar websites
covering slightly different topics. Doing this can help you create topically authoritative
inbound links to different sites in your network and give you a multi-branded
approach to marketing.
However, you
want to make sure your sites are all different and unique. If your sites are
extremely similar, then your sites may receive a spam penalty or have the
nepotistic link popularity discounted. Even worse is that if you interlink them
all, then all of your sites could get penalized at the same time.
Those using
strong brands and good ideas can usually do well without creating a topical
network. If you create a topical network expressly to deceive search engines,
then you are taking a risk and your sites may get removed from the search
indexes. In addition, some search engine relevancy algorithms, such as Google’s
current algorithm, tend to favor one authoritative domain over using many
smaller similar domains.
Many of the
more aggressive techniques are used by people who create crash-and burn-domain
names. They use a site until it gets penalized and then use a new one. They actually
start building up multiple other sites and networks before the first even gets
penalized. If your brand and domain name are important to you, then make sure
you use caution to protect them.
How you
wrap/package/sell the content is important. Many blog networks seem to be able
to get away with murder right now because they are called a blog network. Other
publishers that have tried similar network approaches have got banned for it.
Over time, how blogs are treated may change though, and any way you slice it,
you still need to get links from outside your network.
Keep the following in mind when developing a website
network:
- Make unique sites. Make sure each site is unique enough that it can stand on its own merit.
- Only cross link the sites where it is logical. Blogs being part of a blog network might be considered legitimate cross-linking if it does not look like it was primarily done to spam the engines.
- Use various hosts. This way, if any of your sites go down, not all of your sites are down. Also, some search algorithms can devalue links that come from sites hosted on the same C block IP address. Some hosts also provide random C block IP addresses for each of your sites for a rather reasonable price on a single account.
- Get inbound links from external sources. Register your sites with directories and other topical sites to make sure you have plenty of inbound links into your link network. This will help prevent your sites from looking like an isolated island or link farm.
- Use various link sources. Each of your sites should have many unique link sources outside of your network.
- Do not interlink hundreds of domains together unless you are actively trying to get penalized.
- If you are creating and interlinking sites exclusively for the reason to manipulate search results, then you stand a good chance to eventually be penalized.
- You probably do not want to use the same WHOIS data on a large number of sites if the sites are made with deceptive intent. Additionally, you may want to register sites at a variety of registrars so that there is no discernible pattern. If you register a ton of your domains via proxy and cross link them, that too can look somewhat suspicious.