Helpful to utilize long-tail keyword URLs to point to parts of your website?

[laurieonorio]

Does it help, hurt or do nothing for SEO to utilize long-tail keyword URLs to point to specific pages of your website.

For example, you're a vet and have your business name website, but what if you bought:

CharlotteVeterinarianforCats.com

CharlotteVeterinarianforDogs.com

etc. and pointed them to specific pages in your business website.

[EGOL]

These are long-tail keyword domains.  Yes, I would allow them to expire and allow my competitors use them in a strategy that is ineffective.

[inhouseninja]

Let the domain names expire?  Why? So the competition can pick them up and use them against you?  You might not agree with my methods, but to let the domain names expire would be a mistake given the current weight google gives to exact match domains.

[SEOPA]

Agreed. And focus on best practices for local or regional optimization. If your business is only really focused in Charlotte, for instance, there are many other things you can do to help with this geo optimization.

[EGOL]

I would let those domains expire and buy beer with the money savings.  Then spend the time savings improving my primary website.

[sevencornersinc]

You are very welcome. If I could also suggest checking out the article "The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO"

It is under the "Learn SEO" tab. This might help you organize your to-do's and set up goals for your efforts!

[RobertFisher]

Laurie,

I agree with Inhouseninja and would add this: When you buy the domain, try to purchase it so that it is under a different name, on a different server. Minimally, have it on a different C-block. I am not sure how much from a percentage point of view it can effect link evaluation, but we know that it does. 
So, if both of the new domains are on the same server, owned by the same entity, you will not get near the weight from the search engines (if any).

I do this in a couple of verticals but we the sites are actually fully related, have contact forms and other mechanisms for customer contact, etc. These sites are about 5 pages (not sure that any more would improve our lot) and we are able to use them for linking to the main site. If our main site did not exist, these would be real functioning sites that could be affiliate sites, etc.

Best,

[laurieonorio]

The Whiteboard Friday video was perfect to help me start at the very beginning - thank you for suggesting that (I can't believe I missed it on my own!). There are a million things to do and consider and being overwhelmed and trying to piece it all together was the biggest problem. After the video, I'm starting at square one so I really appreciate your answer!

[inhouseninja]

I can't tell you what the best approach is for you.  For me, I look for domination of a niche when it comes to local search.  The above posting is how I do it, but it might not be the best method for you.  I haven't had success with simply redirecting a domain name.  I have had great success with the method I've mentioned above - linking from the keyword domain to a page on my main site with the exact keyword phrase after the keyword domain has been established in Google.  In fact, what I often see is the #1 ranking for the keyword domain (exact match keyword) and a #2 or #3 ranking for the page I link to from the keyword domain on my main site.

Hope that makes sense. lol.

[sevencornersinc]

I think you would be better off optimizing those pages for your target keywords instead and optimizing your current URL's to include your keywords.

For example: www.compnayname.com/cat-veterinarian

You should watch the most recent Whiteboard Friday. Rand does a great job of showing how to optimize website content based on the keywords you are trying to rank for.

[laurieonorio]

Gotcha - so redirecting the keyword domain to a site on the main website with related content is probably not the best approach?

[inhouseninja]

I have had extensive success with this method.  The catch is that you need to make the long-tailed keyword URL a site that is actually useful to the world.  Don't just put up a 2 page website and link like crazy to your site. You need to make it useful with good content.  I'd say 10 pages minimum of quality content.  You can do this in about 3-4 days with a wordpress.  Also, don't link to your MAIN site for a few months so that google trusts your other domain.

Some will argue with this, but it has worked very well for me in some niche markets.  Also, you hold a domain name so that a competitor can't get it.  Considering the weight google puts on domain names its worth the extra effort to hold and use any domain names you can find.

Again, be careful not to turn the site into a doorway site.  Make the site useful with new articles and fresh content.