Which Domain Name to Choose
-
A non-profit I run owns two domains - ChristianSimplicity.com and SimpleLivingWithGod.com.
I have just started producing content under ChristianSimplicity. These are long-term projects and we have resources to commit to them. They do not need an economic return and that is not going to be sought.
Ultimately I want the sites to rank high on the key words like -
Simple Living
Living a Simple Life
Living Well
The Good Life
Christian Lifestyle
Christian Simple Living
I have a two part question. . . I'll ask the first part now. The second may be irrelevant depending on the first answer.
**Which domain name of the two is best to start out the site? **
We already have some content on the first site, but are early enough in the process that it isn't a big deal for us to switch and I don't think we will lose too much with respect to rankings.
Will the second domain name partial match on key word phrase help significantly more in ranking for the harder term Simple Living? I already rank 14 for Christian Simple Living - and I'm willing for that to drop to have the longer term goal of ranking higher on Simple Living.
Thanks.
-
If I'm understanding you correctly you are suggesting the following . . .
<title>About | Simple Living with God</title>
simplelivingwithgod.com/about/<title>Guide | Simple Living with God</title>
simplelivingwithgod.com/guide/<title>Books | Simple Living with God</title>
simplelivingwithgod.com/books/<title>Consider the Birds of the Air | Simple Living with God</title>
simplelivingwithgod.com/consider-the-birds-of-the-air/<title>The Place of Praise in Simple Living | Simple Living with God</title>
simplelivingwithgod.com/the-place-of-praise-in-simple-living/<title></span><span>Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life | Simple Living with God</span><span class="webkit-html-tag"></title> simplelivingwithgod.com/books/compassion-a-reflection-on-the-christian-life
Would the above be ok? Any of them too spammy?
Wondering if I should add make books and guide Simple Living Books and Simple Living Guide or is doubling that with my Brand in the title too much?
Also does it matter if I use | or - as the separator?
-
I think SimpleLivingWithGod.com will help you rank faster for simple living queries. Titling with your brand name at the end is a best practice in my opinion but definitely not required. I never recommend leading with the brand name unless you are Sears.com or WalMart.com. Those brands are recognizable to the point it makes sense to lead your titles with the brand b/c the brand actually drives CTR. If you're brand isn't known and you aren't investing heavily in the brand they I think your keyword targeted approach is the best option. Just don't get carried away and spammy with it and make sure your page titles reflect the actual content on the page and you should be good to go.
Thumbs up if this helps!
Thanks,
-
Hi again
You can title your pages as you see fit, the example you are using :
<title>Simple Living in God's Care - About Christian Simplicity</title>
http://christiansimplicity.com/simple-living-in-gods-care/Is fine to use, you just need to make sure the content on that page reflects the title you are using. and that the content you do use is unique.
Personally i do not use the brand name at the end of every title, i see no need to do this, as your domain states who you are and there is no need to have it on the end of every title. I only have on a title what i want to target and whats on that page.
Others do tend to add the brand at the end, some use it at the start, and they rank too, so there is no " correct " way of doing that in my opinion.
-
Ok, if I go with Christian Simplicity. . .
Is it appropriate to title my pages like they are now?
<title></span><span class="webkit-html-tag">Simple Living in God's Care - About Christian Simplicity</span><span class="webkit-html-tag"></title>
http://christiansimplicity.com/simple-living-in-gods-care/That is what the "About" | "Christian Simplicity" menu item points too.
Also, since I'm not as much worried about Brand as I am about key words Simple Living and things like that, should I lead with the Keyword in the Title and put the brand at the end instead of the other way around?
That is
<title>Simple Living Guide - Christian Simplicity</title>
instead of
<title>Christian Simplicity - Simple Living Guide</title>
I'm surprised though - I thought if my goal is to ultimately make it to the first page in ranks for Simple Living, that having Simple Living in the url and every title (as the brand) would help it rank higher for that.
<title>Simple Living - My Favorite Post Title</title> http://simplelivingwithgod.com/my-favorite-post-title
Versus
<title>My Favorite Post Title | Christian Simplicity</title> http://christiansimplicity.com/my-favorite-post-title
Granted I am a novice and there is so much information online that is either confusing or contradictory.
-
In my opinion the domain name that is best is the one that reads best and is easy to remember. Having a keyword in a domain isnt as useful as it once was after the EMD update.
Personally i would use the first of the 2 as it is easier to read and remember. Which in turn has longer term benefits.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My question is in regards to possible conflict in creating an additional website under a new domain for our company.
Our companies, Vulcan Information Packaging and ATC both live under the domain “www.binders.com”. This is a great thing as far as us dominating in the binder industry. However, in the next 2-3 years and forward, we want to build our presence as a company who offers packaging products such as boxes, marketing kits, and other forms of packaging. Obviously, the “binders.com” brand/domain does not contribute much to this effort and can be confusing to customers visiting the site. Essentially, we want to build an additional branding for our company in the packaging industry. Keeping this in mind, we own the domain “www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com” and we are considering building a new website using this domain which contains the word “packaging”. This new site would only promote and contain packaging related products. This new website will advertise and direct traffic to our company Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company “binders.com” directs traffic to. So my question is to determine whether doing this might be a practice that Google and other search engines might frown upon. I tend to think it will be fine because we will be promoting and driving traffic for non-binder products where as, binders.com is heavily in binder related products. thank you, Dominic Zaidan
Branding | | dzaidan0 -
Subfolder marketing issue - buying a new domain and 301 to subfolder on existing domain
Hello, I have a specific question and I'll try to be as precise as possible. I have a well ranked domain with good PA. When we were starting our new service I found out that for SEO purposes it would be best to put it under subfolder instead of subdomain or new domain all together because of PA that our domain has. Now, that went pretty well and our new service started appearing in SERPs and is improving rapidly since our link builing strategies were quite sucessful. But there is a problem - we can't advertise our service with a link like this - www.domain.com/subfolder. It's just really messy. And I was wondering if we buy a new domain and 301 redirect it to our subfolder what impacts will that have? If people start linking us as www.newdomain.com will it pass all the juice to www.domain.com/subfolder? Marketing wise I see a lot of benefits using newdomain but I'm afraid it can have SEO downsides and I'm asking for your help to clarify these. Thank you in advance, Best regards, Ivan
Branding | | mintmediadu0 -
Facebook name change error
I keep getting "The Page name you entered does not meet our guidelines. Please review our Page name policies." My name change is well within policy. The page has about 400 fans. I am literally changing a minor aspect. Getting rid of a plural word. Any work around since facebook's site is not working for this?
Branding | | Atomicx0 -
How to rank #1 for brand name when its 2 competitive keywords?
Hi Mozzers, I have recently began the SEO on a website which is a few years old, with little SEO done beforehand.
Branding | | Silkstream
I really want to get this domain ranking #1 for its brand name, however the brand name also happens to be a combination of two highly competitive keywords - one of them being "hire". I have done everything I can think of as a recommended step to signal Google, but it still sits between position #20 and position #15 (on a good day). So far I have:
Set up G+
Linked the website
Added Rel=publisher
Submitted site to Yell.com and a couple of other business directories
Added branded links from every the bio of each article on the blog pointing to the homepage.
Built a handful of branded links from related niche websites.
Set up social pages. Question:
What else can I do to improve on its position in the SERPS? More info:
The site ranks number 2 in Bing for the brand name. The domain is an exact match of two keywords without a hyphen between them - the site ranks position #1 for that search on Google. Question:
Would a hyphenated domain make any difference at all? Thanks everyone!0 -
Linking new domain to existing domain or....
We have a client's domain that has been live for 8 years. truthbook.com. With the new changes to Google, no matter what we do, we cannot get the words Urantia Book to connect with the website and lift it's search engine returns to the first page where it was for the past 4 years.. It is clear, that no matter what Google may say, the most important factor is having the actual words urantiabook in the domain is imperative. We know it was that way before Google changes (they were always on the first page) but now the client cannot get back on the front page. The mission and theme of the site is Jesus in The Urantia Book. So it is not a stretch to acquire urantiabookandjesus.com and forward it to truthbook.com The question is, "will they get any bang for the change? If they considered changing the actual main domain to urantiabookandjesus.com or .org and forward truthbook.com to it, will they be hurt by that strategy? " Thanks, Jim
Branding | | jimmyzig0 -
Rebranding: How Can We Continue to Be Found by Searching the Old Name?
Our company was acquired and we are working toward an entire re-brand, including name change and new url. We plan to appropriately 301 redirect the old site to the correct pages on the news site, etc. The question is, if users continue to search the old company name on search engines, will it appear in SERPs for the new site? I'm guessing that our company name is associated to the old url and will that pass along the branded company name to the new url? My thoughts are to include the old company name in the sitemap.htm file and in the About Us section, particularly in the news release when the change occurs. Aside from that idea is to include social posts on G+, LinkedIn, our Blog, and Twitter as appropriate talking about the name change, all linking to the new website. Any input would be most appreciated!
Branding | | Prospector-Plastics0 -
Organic fluctuations after domain migration ?
I'm working on the rebranding of an ecommerce site We're going to do a domain migration and since half of the current traffic is coming from organic searches I'd like to estimate possible fluctuations on this channel. **Do you have any rebranding experience? or can suggest good case studies on this? ** (Technically speaking we know the protocol and also on the communication/strategy side we're covered.. we just need an estimate of the organic drop.. in the worst case scenario)
Branding | | homeonline0 -
Need a quick simple report comparing popularity of two brand names...
CURT Manufacturing compared to Reese Products. curtmfg.com and reeseprod.com Both sell towing and trailer hitch products. What is the best approach you can recommend using the Pro tools? I perform lightweight analytics using Google Analytics, and some keyword tools here, and also Majestic SEO and Compete - but not a pro and would LOVE it if someone can give me best course direction. Thank you, M Adelman
Branding | | CURT-20817
CURT Mfg.0