Best SEO Practice for a long domain name?

Question

I'm starting a website, with a domain name longer than 20 characters. The domain name is long but it is "memorizable", and it targets the keywords nearly perfect. So let's say my site is about learning how to play the guitar, and the domain name is learnhowtoplaytheguitar.com (this is not real)

Now, obviously many users won't want to type that long phrase in the address bar, or Google search bar.

So I'm planning of creating a "brand name" like letplag (kind of an abbreviation for learn how to play the guitar) so it is easier for future loyal-visitors. And I will have much greater chance with that query.

So my first question is, should I do this, or make the brand name also "learn how to play the guitar" ? What I mean is,

• Should I try to utilize the power of the keyword-rich domain, and make my site title equal to the domain name,
• Or should I increase my chances of being in the first place, by creating a unique keyword?

And if you are pro-letplag, my real question is, how should I do it?

for example, -part of- site title can be "letplag", so the article titles can be like,

"learn major chords in guitar - letplag"

But I think this will decrease my chances for "learn how to play the guitar" query. Can I somehow associate the word "letplag" with guitar learning, in the eyes of Google, by making my social-media account names "letplag", or by any other means ?

Thanks for any help !

Answer 1

A few points to cover:

1. Keyword rich domains do not carry the same weight they used to with Google. But they still resonate with humans. What is easier to remember? Common words or a made up one? Common words usually are easier to remember unless you can build up a brand around the made up word (Google, Twitter, etc). So you have a chicken and egg problem here. How do you get a made up word to be well known if you can't promote it because it is not well known?

2. Having a unique word can be helpful if people are actually looking for that keyword. If they're looking for it, they will almost certainly find you as competition will be very low making ranking well for it easier. The only problem with that is it doesn't help you with anyone else who is searching for you. That unique keyword is not going to be used in any the other phrases users are looking for so optimizing for that keyword will not help you optimize for related keywords (it never appears in phrases like, "guitar lessons", "learn how to play guitar", "guitar tabs", etc). So you're putting all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak, and it's a small basket.

3. You can associate the word "leptag" with guitar learning, though. Basically by having that word appear in links containing text related to learning guitar, on pages that are related to guitar learning, etc, you can associate the two together. But since leptag isn't a real word and has no natural meaning getting Google to the point where it associates leptag to guitar learning is an uphill task requiring lots of links and time.