Multiple domains?

[DavidIRC]

I do own a domain for my business right now, and would have a few questions, regarding the increase or traffic for my website and getting new business

1. Is it worth to purchase multiple domains, keyword search relevant, to my business?

2. If so how is the best way to use it? : have them redirect to my own website? a specific type of redirect? do I make a separate website for each of them?

3. for ex if the keyword is " tile and grout". I figured would be best to own "tileandgrout.com". How about "tile-and-grout.com"?

thank you in advance

[EGOL]

I own a lot of EMDs and the keywords that they represent range from very easy to extremely difficult.

EMDs will still rank extremely well if you have a nicely optimized website with a few pages that is in the google index and the level of competition is very low.  You don't need a lot of links, you just need to get it in the index.  Lots of people say that this does not work in google any more but I can tell you for a fact that it does.  I have #1 rankings with sites like this.

This will work until some competition arrives.  When competition arrives the value of the EMD is tiny compared to the value of links and other assets.  Then you have to earn your rankings just like any other website.

Should you use EMDs as a business model?  Probably not.  If you have a website of reasonable strength you can simply add a nicely optimized page to it and quickly rank above an EMD in a low-competition SERP.   I do it to EMD competitors all of the time.  

I see lots of people coming into forums crying... "That spammer with an EMD is beating me  Wah!"   I chuckle at these because I have EMDs that get their asses kicked all of the time.   If an EMD is above you that webmaster has probably earned it unless there is no competition in your SERP and you have a website with zero strength.  Get off of your butt and get working.  You don't deserve to rank.  The EMD is a tiny advantage, if you are pissed off about it then just call the guy up and offer to buy it from him.   Then, a week after you take over the domain another weak site will move above you and you will be cryin' again.

[Chris.Menke]

Additionally David, do your best to step out of the mindset that there may be some sort of shortcuts that you can use to get more traffic.  For the new website owner, building traffic is an exercise in being a solid business person.  You want to understand what you need to do to keep your shop in order (on-page seo), then learn all you can about your customers and competitors--who they are, where they are online what they like, and who they follow socially. Follow them, give them a reason to follow you by interacting with them and demonstrating to them why your company is the right one for their job..

Minimally, several hours per week, every week, spent on those activities will pay off for you and your one domain--and think about it, if that's what it takes to get one domain off the ground, would you have time for two?  What working person does?

[iQandil]

Hi David,

Exact Match Domain (EMD) names are currently being ignored by Google. A while back Matt Cutts (the leader of the spam team at Google) said it should have the weight people give it. Watch this video for more information.

In September 2012 EMD update first came into effect to prevent poor quality sites from ranking well simply because they had words that match search terms in their domain names. When a fresh EMD Update happens, sites that have improved their content may regain good rankings. New sites with poor content — or those previously missed by EMD — may get caught. In addition, “false positives” may get released. Our latest news about the EMD Update is below.

As Thmoas and Daniel said, focus on the quality of your content, usability (which is the biggest next thing in SEO) and accessibility. Ensure that your website is all about your customers and the product, NOT about search engines.

Ensure you help search engines and users find the useful content on your website, relate to relevant pages using internal linking, breadcrumb and relevant keyword optimisation between linked pages. Ensure you dont have orphan pages and watch your Analytics system to know which pages are being viewed most, have most time on site, referred, these are the pages users love. If you see high bounce rate and exit rate, or drop outs from some pages, these pages need some serious improvements.

And never buy traffic or pay to include your links in linking schemes, focus more on PR for external links and probably editorials. Partner with blogs and webmasters to host articles with relevant and high quality content on their blogs.

I hope this can help.

Regards,

Issa

[djlaidler]

Hi David,

Forget Exact Match Domains. Firstly, they no longer have the appeal (as they are not as easy to rank nowadays). More than one domain means that you need to work twice or multiple times as hard in order to get them to rank.

You are best investing the time in your site. Generate more content, run a news section or a blog. Guest post on like sites with engaging topics in your industry. Engage in forums, be known as the leader in your industry. One strong site is better than many small sites. You don't see apple run a site for tablets OR phones OR laptops.

Hope this helps,

Dan

[BlueprintMarketing]

I would strongly suggest that you focus on your one domain and do not worry about doing things like purchasing domains with exact match names.  it would be one thing if you  already had an exact match domain however I guess you don't.

that is not a bad thing. Google has devalued exact match domains greatly in the recent past and will continue to do so in my belief.

Focus on building your brand and not on a get to the top quick scheme.

Don't buy domains spend the time and money on building content that is relevant and engaging that way when people come to your site they will be interested and want to purchase instead of clicking away when they go to whatever your exact match domain name is and realize that that's not what they want.

I hope I've been of help,

Tom