Helpful to utilize long-tail keyword URLs to point to parts of your website?
-
Does it help, hurt or do nothing for SEO to utilize long-tail keyword URLs to point to specific pages of your website.
For example, you're a vet and have your business name website, but what if you bought:
CharlotteVeterinarianforCats.com
CharlotteVeterinarianforDogs.com
etc. and pointed them to specific pages in your business website.
-
These are long-tail keyword domains. Yes, I would allow them to expire and allow my competitors use them in a strategy that is ineffective.
-
Let the domain names expire? Why? So the competition can pick them up and use them against you? You might not agree with my methods, but to let the domain names expire would be a mistake given the current weight google gives to exact match domains.
-
Agreed. And focus on best practices for local or regional optimization. If your business is only really focused in Charlotte, for instance, there are many other things you can do to help with this geo optimization.
-
I would let those domains expire and buy beer with the money savings. Then spend the time savings improving my primary website.
-
You are very welcome. If I could also suggest checking out the article "The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO"
It is under the "Learn SEO" tab. This might help you organize your to-do's and set up goals for your efforts!
-
Laurie,
I agree with Inhouseninja and would add this: When you buy the domain, try to purchase it so that it is under a different name, on a different server. Minimally, have it on a different C-block. I am not sure how much from a percentage point of view it can effect link evaluation, but we know that it does.
So, if both of the new domains are on the same server, owned by the same entity, you will not get near the weight from the search engines (if any).I do this in a couple of verticals but we the sites are actually fully related, have contact forms and other mechanisms for customer contact, etc. These sites are about 5 pages (not sure that any more would improve our lot) and we are able to use them for linking to the main site. If our main site did not exist, these would be real functioning sites that could be affiliate sites, etc.
Best,
-
The Whiteboard Friday video was perfect to help me start at the very beginning - thank you for suggesting that (I can't believe I missed it on my own!). There are a million things to do and consider and being overwhelmed and trying to piece it all together was the biggest problem. After the video, I'm starting at square one so I really appreciate your answer!
-
I can't tell you what the best approach is for you. For me, I look for domination of a niche when it comes to local search. The above posting is how I do it, but it might not be the best method for you. I haven't had success with simply redirecting a domain name. I have had great success with the method I've mentioned above - linking from the keyword domain to a page on my main site with the exact keyword phrase after the keyword domain has been established in Google. In fact, what I often see is the #1 ranking for the keyword domain (exact match keyword) and a #2 or #3 ranking for the page I link to from the keyword domain on my main site.
Hope that makes sense. lol.
-
I think you would be better off optimizing those pages for your target keywords instead and optimizing your current URL's to include your keywords.
For example: www.compnayname.com/cat-veterinarian
You should watch the most recent Whiteboard Friday. Rand does a great job of showing how to optimize website content based on the keywords you are trying to rank for.
-
Gotcha - so redirecting the keyword domain to a site on the main website with related content is probably not the best approach?
-
I have had extensive success with this method. The catch is that you need to make the long-tailed keyword URL a site that is actually useful to the world. Don't just put up a 2 page website and link like crazy to your site. You need to make it useful with good content. I'd say 10 pages minimum of quality content. You can do this in about 3-4 days with a wordpress. Also, don't link to your MAIN site for a few months so that google trusts your other domain.
Some will argue with this, but it has worked very well for me in some niche markets. Also, you hold a domain name so that a competitor can't get it. Considering the weight google puts on domain names its worth the extra effort to hold and use any domain names you can find.
Again, be careful not to turn the site into a doorway site. Make the site useful with new articles and fresh content.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What defines what words in a title are considered Keywords?
Hi, sorry if this is a silly question. I'm curious how keywords are defined. Is every word in a title a possible keyword? If I have a keyword titled "Linear Shower Drain | 40" Long", does it take the whole thing as a keyword? Is just "Linear Shower Drain" the keyword? Would "Shower Drain" pop up as a keyword, since its nested in the title? Thank you in advance for your answers!
Keyword Research | | ezable0 -
Keyword Planner not showing exact match
hi guys I'm currently trying to optimize a site for 'Recruitment Agency North West' when I enter his term into keyword planner it gives me no results for the exact match, but offers me figures for 'Recruitment Agencies North West' Am I to assume that nobody has ever searched 'Recruitment Agency North West'?!!! and that I should be focusing on 'Recruitment Agencies North West' as my main key phrase? Is there another site other than keyword planner that will give me results for 'Recruitment Agency North West'? cheers M
Keyword Research | | Staunton_Rook0 -
Optimized URL?
Hi Mozers, We're trying to come up with an SEO friendly URL. Does it make sense to re-order primary-secondary-tumor to secondary-primary-tumor because "primary tumor" has high volumes and thus those two words should be adjacent? Any advice is appreciated! Yael
Keyword Research | | yaelslater0 -
Keyword Organising
Does anyone know of any tools to aid organising keywords? I'm currently using Excel extensively in an effort to bring some organisation, however it is very labour intensive.
Keyword Research | | seoman100 -
If I insert a "stop" word into a long tail keyword, will it break it up?
I'm in the legal industry, and a lot of the long tail keywords I'm finding are search queries that are pinpointed for my location. As a result, I come up with [subject] + [location] as good keywords... for example: "subpoena duces tecum new york." (basically it's a subpoena, just the fancy name). However, I have no clue how to use something like this in a sentence....if I say "subpoena duces tecum IN new york" does the "in" break up the keyword, or is "in" just a stop word that doesn't affect the keyword? Countless examples of similar keywords "Car accident new york" etc. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | cgs2303 -
Keyword Analysis
Is there any way I can find out a list of the top keywords for my site automatically without having to type in certain words myself and wait on the results?
Keyword Research | | meteorelectrical0 -
On-Page optimization for the Long-Tail
Does anyone have any thoughts about on-page optimization for the long-tail of keywords? I know, I know, the way you capture long-tail searches is by having lots of content. The problem is that I can't convince some of my clients to do anything with content marketing. Even so, I'm noting that as much as half the leads for some small business clients comes from long-tail searches. Meanwhile I spend all my time trying to get their pages to rank for a one or two terms. It seems like there must a scientific way to approach increasing long-tail traffic on pre-existing pages. I'm now experimenting with looking at the frequency of words that appear in searches that the client only receives 1 visit from. Together these one-offs amount to about half the traffic. For instance if I have data like this: Visits Search 1 Training help for my German Shepard 1 German Shepard resources in St. Paul 1 German Shepard clubs etc. etc. Then it makes sense to add some language about German shepards, and perhaps try for anchor text with the 'german shepard' match. Perhaps add a photo with alt text of German Shepard etc. The trouble with this technique is that my main target term for the page might be something like "Dog Training Twin Cities". If I try to increase my long-tail traffic about german shepards I risk creating a frankenpage! I'd love to know if any one else has tried to approach this problem of maximizing long-tail traffic on existing pages without hurting UX. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | JesseCWalker0 -
Should I use Phrase Keywords when doing Keyword Research?
Hi all, I've spent the past couple of days doing some extensive keyword research in Adwords Traffic Estimator, looking for keywords to optimise my pages. I've been searching using EXACT so I get a realistic value but I'm wondering if PHRASE is better suited for research after all its more likely someone will visit my site via a phrase match than exact? What are your thoughts on this?
Keyword Research | | Seaward-Group0