Short brandable domain vs. long keyword domain

Question

I need a counsel about my websites' domain.

Let's say I have just bought two domains: xyz.com and xyzphotography.com.

As we can see, the first one is shorter but way less meaningful than the second one. The second one contains a photography keyword but it's longer.

I have only one website which is my photography portfolio. Can you advise me how to set those domains to make it all as SEO-friendly as possible? Which one should be the main one, does the rest should work on their own or have some kind of SEO-friendly redirect to the main domain?

Answer 1

I agree with John....Keywords in the domains could help just little and mainly in niche sectors. Remember what is very important are the quality of your content and your popularity in Internet. In your case I would choice xyzphotography.com ... it is not so dramatically long name and ti is also descriptive.

Very important to remember: you should avoid choosing long domain name with many "-" like xyz-photograpy-central-london.co.uk ... this kind of domains were historically used for spammy proposes and could flag the search engine.

Also the extension of the domain is very important... Let's imagine you want have a better visibility in UK (maybe you have a studio there) so a domain with tld .co.uk could be more appropriate and you get a better visibility on local search engine ex google.co.uk instead that the .com version.

Also the period of registration for a domain is important. If you buy a domain register it for a longer periods.. let's immagine 3 years. for SEO would be better. It show that you are willing to use the domain for legitimate use and not for spammy proposes.

Hope could helped you.

Answer 2

Redirecting the longer name to the shorter name will not help your SEO. So if SEO is your highest priority then use the longer domain name. If branding is more important then use the shorter name. One way to decide which to use comes down to competition. Are the keywords you are targeting very competitive or not? If so, use the longer domain name to help your rankings along. If not use the shorter one since ranking well for your keywords will not be too difficult.

Answer 3

pick the one with the keyword in it or even better an exact match domain that becomes your brand. My research points to these being 90% easier to rank than other domains (just check the backlinks of exact match domains in the top 10 results of any keyword)

you can always print your business cards with your brandy non keyword domain and use a brandy non keyword email address if you want to

Answer 4

In case for SEO purpose your main keyword must be in your domain for getting fast ranking in SERP. But try it not so long.