Choosing the Right Domain Name - Ignore common words

Usually your keywords will contain short words like "the", "for", "a", "to". You will usually be tempted to use your entire keyword phrase in your domain/subdomain name. But search engines actually ignore the short common word all together.

If you search for 'guitars for sale' on Google we will see that guitarssale.com is better ranked then guitarsforsale.com. By looking at the way Google analyzes search results, we can see that guitarssale.com has better keyword density then guitars for sale. Notice how Google highlights in bold the keywords in domain name and whole guitarssale.com is in bold, while in guitarsforsale.com only guitars and sale are in bold, the middle part is skipped all together.

So next time you register a domain name keep it short, without common words ;)

I haven't actually confirmed it, it just struck me now.

Check out the second domain name trick and find about netvestor projects.

Proper use of dashes in domain name explained

Often when developing your new site on one of the platforms I wrote about (weebly review, squidoo review, tumblr review...) you have a choice to pick up a subdomain name. So if your niche is laptopskins your site will be something like laptopskins.tumblr.com.

Obviously you want your keywords in your subdomain name. That helps with SEO and brings you higher in search results. But sometimes it is hard for a search engine to split your keywords if they are written all together. Although google says they can split your words pretty good, you are still not sure. Adding dashes (or hyphens) will sometimes be necessary to help out the search engine with your words. However, dashes lengthen your website address and also make it harder for users to remember. So you want to use dashes only if you really have to. How can you tell?

To find out if you need dashes in your subdomain name or not go to google and type your keywords (allconnectedtogether). If you get a "Did you mean?" hint from google with your words split up, you are safe to use it without dashes. Otherwise dashes might be necessary.

Why is website investing better then domain investing

Here is a hint. Imagine domain name as a piece of land. If you grabbed a really good piece of land before the area gets developed, chances are you will be able to sell it for a much larger profit. Same goes for domain names. To make really good money you need to pick domains early and with a hint of an idea what is going to happen. Unfortunately people buy all kind of crappy domain names (land near dumps) because the opportunities are almost all gone. They hope to sell them one day but it just will not happen.

Domain trading sites are full of all kind of domain names that just lie there doing nothing. Occasionally you sell a domain or two and if you are really good you can actually make some profit. For most people domain name trading is like stock trading - you might get lucky but you will eventually loose.

But let me give you an idea what you can do about it. Why let your land just stand next to a dump and do nothing about it? Develop it into a website! People make profit with buying and selling land, but they get really rich (Donald Trump style) by investing in real-estate. Same is with domain names. Secret is to develop it into a mini site, about anything really, learn the necessary marketing techniques and start earning. With relatively little effort you can make a site that will earn you about $10 a month. That will pay for your domain and earn you an extra $110 per year. You can then chose to sell it as a site for 10x or 100x as much as a domain name was worth. Or you can turn your entire portfolio into a money making machine.