Learning how to pick a niche domain name to start an affiliate marketing site is one of the most important strategies that an internet marketer can learn. There are blatant disadvantages for marketers that choose not to follow these tips and major rewards for those that do.
Exact Match Domain Names
The best domain name selection strategy to use for almost any type of website is choosing an exact match domain. These domains are based on search engine keyword phrases, so the objective is to find an available domain name that exactly matches a keyword phrase.
The goal of this strategy is to pick a keyword phrase that receives exact phrase internet traffic regularly. More monthly traffic is better, but higher traffic level phrases will generally have a lot more search engine competition so a healthy balance between traffic and competition is recommended.
Search Engine Rankings
The point of registering an exact match domain is to target the niche relating to the keyword phrase. In general, the main keyword phrase of the site will be the domain name, while other pages on the site can target other relational terms in the same niche.
The end result is a website that is considered a mini authority site for that niche. When done correctly, the domain will almost always have a top ten ranking on major search engines, including Google, for the primary keyword phrase of the site.
Even though search engines like Google have toned down the effectiveness of this strategy over the years, it is still a very reliable way to break into a new niche and get free, targeted search engine traffic. In addition to being able to rank on the primary keyword phrase, the site also has a very good chance of ranking for other relational phrases as well.
Top Level Domains
There are a lot of people that are already familiar with the exact match domain strategy, but there are also many people that use it incorrectly. Obviously, it is a lot harder to find a.com domain than the other top level domains, but the real power of this strategy lies with a.com domain. Take the extra time to hunt down the proper name to achieve the best results.
Other top level domains that are more commonly available, like.net and.org, are still decent choices and can work for this strategy. However, an exact match.com domain name always has a bit of an advantage. One reason being is that a.com will get the traffic of those who directly enter the keyword phrase as the URL.
Some people register domains with hyphens or an extra word to get the full keyword phrase name. While this will certainly give a ranking boost over domains that do not contain those keywords, it is very similar to selecting a.net or.org.
Why the EMD Strategy Works and Always Will
As search engines, like Google, have downgraded the effectiveness of the EMD, exact match domain, strategy, many affiliate marketers have assumed that this ranking bonus would be completely taken away. However, there are two good reasons why this is simply a myth and will never happen.
The first reason is domain branding, which is the original purpose of the whole domain system. A company purchases their website address as a brand name. Search engines know that when someone searches a keyword phrase, they may be looking for a site by that exact name. For this simple reason, these engines will never completely take away this ranking boost.
The last reason involves marketers and their attempts to spam search engines by using these domains. It is entirely possibly that marketers do this and that search engines want to stop it, but it won't happen by simply removing power from exact match domains.
If a site is a low-quality resource of duplicate content and internet spam, the search engines will still not rank it well even with an exact match domain bonus. This simple fact shows that they will always have other ways to figure out whether a site is worthy of a ranking or not, so marketers do not need to worry about their exact match domain names losing power as long as they are building quality websites with unique content.
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