July 26, 2013 E3

Web Design with WordPress 101 – Selecting a Domain Name for SEO

Today we’ll talk about how to select a domain name for your website. Selecting an appropriate name for your site can go a long way towards increasing the visibility of your site on the web. In this class we’ll touch on some of the dos and don’ts of choosing an appropriate name for your website.

Most users who need to find something on the web start with a search engine to locate the content they desire. Popular search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo all use your domain name to help index your website making it easier to connect user search terms to your content. While your domain name isn’t the only part of your web site that a search engine considers when indexing your web site, it is certainly a valuable piece in the indexing process.

There are whole businesses dedicated to helping you optimize your site for search engines. This practice is known as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. If you are selling a product or promoting a business it is an important aspect of designing and developing your site. Picking a domain name that serves this purpose is just the beginning of optimizing your site. We’ll talk more about SEO as the course progresses and what you can do to help ensure your web site gets better rankings in search engines.

Many sites utilize keywords in their domain names knowing full well that search engines consider the keywords when indexing their sites. Keywords tend to give a hint to what type of content may be available on a given website. For example, a site named PittsburghMarketing.com would suggest that the site deals with marketing in the Pittsburgh area. Traditionally, keywords have played an important role in helping search engines determine how to treat your web site. However, search engines have increasingly moved away from relying heavily on the keywords you include in your domain name.

The focus of the major search engines, such as Google, has moved towards branding. Google see’s branding as a potential solution to weeding out spam and returning results that users really want. If the content that is indexed by Google is associated with a well-known and reputable brand, it is that much more likely to get posted in the search results. What this means in terms of your site’s name is that it is less important to use buzz words or keywords in your domain name and more important to create a brand that internet users can associate with your content.

This class will cover the fundamentals of choosing a domain name for SEO including some pro tips on how to build a solid foundation for a strong, legitimate, and most importantly, high-ranking online web site.

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