Keyword domain usage

[yolkcreative]

Hi

I have a client who wants some advice on the following and I haven't come up with anything decent yet. So wanted to throw it out here.

They own a domain like soccershoes.com which also houses their web site. They have now bought ussoccershoes.com because this US based search term is more popular than simply soccer shoes.

How can they utilise this new domain effectively to drive traffic to their main web site?

Thanks for any input.

[yolkcreative]

Thank you Eli.

[yolkcreative]

Thank you Peter. That all makes sense!

[EGOL]

soccershoes.com

That is awesome,  nice work.

All of my sites are on domains like that.  It gives me energy to work on a great domain.

As for ussoccershoes.com.        I would probably keep it registered so nobody else got it.... but there are so many others that they could register like greatsoccershoes.com  kickasssoccershoes.com....

I would probably let it expire and use the saved money to buy beer.

[Thriveworks-Counseling]

Jake,

I completely agree with Peter. We used to buy keyword domains all the time - and it worked well - until about 6 months ago. We own counseling practices, so we bought many [city]+counseling.com domains for really cheap.

A year ago, those ranked on Google in top 5 spots within 2 months of purchasing and building out the site. Now, you cannot find those keyword domains anywhere, unless, like Peter said, they already had domain authority. The domains we had been working on for years are still fine, but starting with a new keyword domain now is like starting with just an ordinary domain.

Eli

[crackingmedia]

Hi Jake

Depending on how long they have had their current domain (i.e. the one like soccershoes.com), then it may be better to focus their attention in optimising some of the pages on that site for US market.

One of the ranking factors for a site is the domain's authority which in part is based on its age. For a new domain there is no authority to start with, so if the existing domain they have is older and is already online and earning authority then concentrate on that one. The other domain they have just bought can then be redirected to the existing one, but there isn't any great SEO value in doing that.

Exact match domains like ussoccershoes.com used to be a quick route to target being ranked for search terms but because they have, Google is not paying so much attention now to ranking them well, especially when they are new domain. That isn't to say it wouldn't be possible to rank a site like that for the search term, but at the end of the day it comes down to having lots of good unique content for the keywords you are targeting.

I hope that helps,
Peter