The synergy between domains and SEO is most obvious in keyword match domains.
As of 2007, these are the only low hanging fruit left in the domain industry, and the great news is, traditionalist domainers have often overlooked these investments!
Keyword match domains are powerful in the SEO world because they get a ton of r-e-s-p-e-c-t from search engines. In SEO, there is something called a “navigational query.” This is what the engineers call it when someone types in a word (usually a brand) to navigate directly to the brand’s website.
For instance, did you know that “google” is the top search query in the Yahoo search engine? A lot of people use Yahoo! as their homepage because it has a nice portal feel, but when they need to search for stuff, they type “google” into Yahoo and navigate to Google to perform the actual search.
So back to keyword match domains. When you type in a KW and a website with a KW matched domain exists, Google will think you are trying to navigate to that site. So, search engines automatically boost the search rankings for ALL keyword matched domains, whether it is a .COM, .NET, or .ORG.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some examples!
RumCakes.com belongs to bad-ass domainer Frank Schilling. He mentioned this in his speech at a domainer conference.
So his site isn’t really that special. It’s just a tricked out parking page, with a bunch of PPC ads plastered on it. But look at this Google ranking!
Considering that there is no unique content, no link-building campign, this ranking is not bad for a site that contributes no unique content or value to the web. With a few man-hours and few hundred bucks in link building, RumCakes.com could easily snatch the #1 spot for [rum cakes].
A more outrageous example is MortgageCalculator.com. They have a great domain, but the site is really undeveloped.
Nevertheless with only 35 backlinks and only 1 crappy page indexed, they’ved scored #8 rankings for [mortgage calculator], one of the most competitive KWs in existence!
The great thing is, while pretty much every single KW-matched .COM in existence has been registered, .NET and .ORG domains have been overlooked in many niches. The reason is that traditional domainers get traffic from typos. No one ever makes a typo with the .NET or .ORG TLD, so a lot of domainers don’t bother with these extensions. In KW matched domaining, you get traffic from the SEO boost—not typos–and the SEO boost is equally strong for .COMs, .NETs, and .ORGs. Keyword matched domaining is definitely not as scalable as type-in domaining since it requires time to develop and build links, but in my experience the ROI is significantly greater than type-in domaining.
The take away message of keyword matched domains
- Search engines give keyword-matched domains a huge SEO boost
- SEO boost is equally great for .COMs, .ORGs, and .NETs.
- .ORGs and .NETs are undervalued! Domainers frequently overlook them and they are currently the only low hanging fruit left.
- Snatch up those [KW].NETs, [KW].ORGs, develop them with unique content, do SEO on them, and you will get a ton of traffic. Forget parking pages.