Branding And Domain Names

There have been tons of discussions over the past year about domain name selection, particularly when it comes to Exact Match Domains (EMD) and Partially Matched Domains (PMD). After the numerous Google algorithm scares which involved attacks by cute black and white creatures, everybody is in a huff about whether choosing an EMD or a PMD might affect the ranking of their website in Google.

I must say I had suffered the brunt of the furry creature attack, both Panda and Penguin. My websites never recovered and I eventually had to make the hard decision of shutting them down. At first glance, you might say that it had to do with my domain name selection, which is where I initially lay my blame. Two of my best websites were quickhemorrhoidscure.com (target keyword: hemorrhoids cure) and fish-tank-filters.org (target keyword: fish tank filters). Both were ranked on 1st Page for these keywords and were getting a very healthy level of traffic before Panda and Penguin but after the attack, they almost totally dropped out of Google. Today I know that they dropped because of generally low quality content and irregular updates. But still the fear of EMD penalties still bugs me. Pat Flynn, in his post on Branding and Domain Names points at the importance of creating a Brand, rather than merely targeting keywords in the URL. I would recommend reading the post but in essence, he talks about the 7 characteristics of a brand name and conducting research on the selected brand name. These will be the basis of selecting any brand name to build a URL around.

7 Characteristics Of A Brand Name

1. Easy To Remember: Select something memorable.
2. Not Too Long: Long URLs are prone to misspelling.
3. Easy To Spell: Skip words that are difficult to spell. I made this mistake when I used the word hemorrhoids in my URL.
4. Descriptive: A good brand describes your website with little effort. Anyone reading your URL would instantly have a good idea that your website is about.
5. No Numbers Or Hyphens: This too makes it prone to misspelling.
6. It Has Rhythm: The sound of it rolls beautifully off your tongue. I've always loved the word Google, but that's obviously taken.
7. A .com If Possible: I've heard this many times before. While I did have some good success using a .net URL, many experts still swear by the .com domains.

Lastly, imagine a year or two from now. Can you see your brand being the ultimate resource for your niche? If you can, then you've got yourself a Brand.

The Research

After coming to the ideal domain name, you would have to do a little extra research. What you are going to look for is:

• Does it already exist? Is someone already using that Brand? You can just do a simple Google search for this part. If it does, it would be best to select an alternative.
• Is it a trademark? Avoid this like the plague. I once tried to create a website with a trademark brand name and after spending months setting it up and posting articles, I received letters from a law firm demanding that I take down the website. I was lucky, I could have been sued.
• Is it available? Go to GoDaddy and see if you can sign up for the URL.

This is a simple guide on choosing a brand, domain name and URL. So much more simpler than trying to match EMDs and PMDs.