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Best Domain Name for Life Coaching Site
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Hello,
I am an NLP health coach. I am starting to work with both life threatening illnesses and minor diagnoses. NLP is a type of personal development. I'm wondering what your opinion of the best domain would be, keeping in mind branding, SEO, and usability/rememberability. The term "NLP" is not well known. I will be doing both phone coaching and in-person coaching. My other website (BobWeikel.com) is not very strong because of the lack of keywords in the domain, but it's easy to remember.
Options are:
BoiseHealthCoach.com (I'm in Boise Idaho)
or whatever you suggest.
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Keywords people get to me with are
NLP Boise
NLP Life Coach
NLP Health Coach
and related terms.
I want them to find me eventually with terms such as
NLP Coach
Health Coach
Life Coach
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What are the keywords people use when looking for your service?
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Let me zoom up to the 30,000 feet level to offer a much broader perspective than a techie/geeky approach that draws on general principles. The reason is simple: your situation is very particular.
As i'm sure you are aware, NLP is hugely controversial. Many consider it a discredited and crackpot theory roughly on a par with the flat earth society. I'm not saying that's true....only that those doing a quick Google search might reach that conclusion.
The Wikipedia article on NLP has a bone of contention for years. It is currently edit-protected and includes the sentence:
"NLP is unsupported by current scientific evidence, and uses incorrect and misleading terms and concepts."
In a former life, I was the editor of a fitness publication. We published an article that drew on some NLP concepts. It provoked a furious response -- up to, and including, suggestions from otherwise rational people that all those responsible for publishing the article should be fired and blacklisted!
Again, I'm not saying I agree or regret publishing the article.
But given all the above, I can see no arguments in favour of including NLP in your domain name and many against.
I am also not suggesting you hide who you are, what you do, or what you believe.
Only that there is a time and place for everything.
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Hi Bob
On the SEO side, keywords in domain names don't directly matter as much as they used to, especially with Google. That's the general consensus these days.
On the Usability side, it still helps if there is a keyword or two in the domain name, it helps with that remember-ability as you mentioned plus can help with Click Through Rates if it 'does what it says on the tin'.
What the keyword(s) is depends largely on whether Brand or Product/Service is your most important selling point.
If 'Bob Weikel' is your brand that you'd like to be the main selling point, then include those words.
If 'Health Coach' is what you'd like to be foremost known for, then go for that.
And of course, your suggestion of 'bobweikelhealthcoach.com' includes both brand and service and isn't too long, though more difficult to remember perhaps than either or. Perhaps drop the Bob and become known as 'w****eikelhealthcoach.com' as a suggestion.
There's no definitive right or wrong, it's what best matches your business purpose & goals.
If you haven't already read it, have a read of a Domain Guide here on SEOmoz which may help you further.
I hope all that does help you out,
Regards
Simon
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