Changing domain name vs URL redirect to improve URL building

Question

I have a domain named companyname.com with PR3 and would like to improve the SEO by adding my main keyword in the domain name. I'm thinking about:

1. Buying the domain main-keyword-companyname.com and moving the site to it (while also redirecting the old pages to the new domain)

2. Moving the main site content to the folder companyname.com/main-keyword and have all the content branch up from there (while also redirecting the old pages to the ones using the new naming scheme).

Is it possible for any of these actions to have a negative impact on my SEO?

Is there a real benefit from any of these actions? If so, which of the above solutions would yield better SEO results?

Is there a better solution than the ones mentioned above?

Answer 1

I think it's a bad idea to try to insert a keyword inside your domain name. It appears spammy. Domain name like companyname.com is the best choice. Think about big corporations like Google, Facebook and so on, do you see domain name like search-engine-google.com or social-network-facebook.com? Of course not, only the brand for the domain name.

Moreover, you lose some juice (just a little) thus PR when you apply a 301 redirect to a new website.

The best option you have is to keep your domain name and apply on-page optimization, off-page optimization and add some relevant content to your activity regularly (by creating a blog for instance).

Moreover, a short domain name is easy to remember. In your case, don't think about SEO but visitors (one of the famous saying of Google).

Answer 2

You don't need your main keyword in your domain to rank for well it, and the gains form having it there are minimal, and arguably could be bad after Googles Exact Match Domain update:

Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality "exact-match" domains in search results.— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts)

With this in mind, Point 2 would be the better way to go out of the two. Point 1 Looks very spammy with 4 hyphens in it.

However having said that, you do not need to go with this way either and could concentrate your efforts on the home page and the rest of the site. Landing pages often look just like they sound, low quality landing pages for single keywords.