How to evaluate a domain name for a UK site: top level domain, number of words, and hyphens

Question

I have 12 domain names for a new business project and I'm looking for advice as to which one is best for SEO and online optimisation strategy:

• seo-check.co.uk
• seo-check.com
• seocheckonline.co.uk
• seo-check-online.co.uk
• seocheckonline.com
• seo-check-online.com
• seo-checks.co.uk
• seo-checks.com
• seochecksonline.co.uk
• seo-checks-online.co.uk
• seochecksonline.com
• seo-checks-online.com

The word "SEO" is different in reality, I've just used it for example purposes here. The business is based in and specific to the UK market (hence .co.uk), but which domain name is best for SEO and online strategy?

Answer 1

If i were you i would follow the following:

1. Avoid having a - in the domain name. - Hyphens make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. I'd suggest not using spelled-out in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other.

   Consider you do create a website with seo-check-online.com and it goes on to become a success. However if someone want to get around your traffic, they can simply get it by creating a dummy website at seocheckonline.com. Always think about your competitors also when eyeing something big..

2. Search keywords as domain name tends to get your website more hits as the traffic would be more organic and you will easily get lot of traffic without any use.

3. Build up a list of keywords that you want to focus on and if the keyword can be in the domain name, then it will only boost your website value.

4. Even though you want to be country specific(co.uk), i would rather suggest you go ahead with a .com one as it will fetch you considerable amount more traffic(unless you just want to focus on uk region).

   a. If the UK market is of no importance to you buy just .com domains.

   b. If you are a UK site and you are not concerned with your position in the international search engines, then buy just .co.uk versions of your domain names.

   c. If you want to sell in the UK and search engine performance matters to you then buy both versions.

But above all, you would need to build your website with unique and good content, without which no matter how good your domain or seo skills, it wont give you much result..

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Makes no difference which one is "best for SEO and online optimisation strategy". What matters is what content will be on the website. Google don't care what you domain is any more, domains with keywords in (exact match domains - emd) no longer have any direct ranking affect as a standalone factor.

So the only thing to consider with your domain is the benefit to users and brandability. Everything else will come down to what content is published on the website.

Answer 3

seocheckonline.com

.com is recognized in the UK as much as a .co.uk. Additionally if you target foreign markets (US) they'll be confused by the .co.uk.

Don't worry about regional seo pigeonholing as a result of your TLD, use geotargetting metadata and relevant content instead and you can have whatever TLD you want and Google will still think its for US or UK.

Hyphens are bad. They will confuse users who have been told your domain in conversation.

Whether seocheck or seocheckonline is best is up to you, try and research what people would search for, then adapt your content accordingly.