Choosing Your Domain Name Is Critical

If you are going to be successful, there are a few things that you need to be great at.  The first, is being able to assess needs.  What I mean by this is that you need to be able to figure out your niche site topics not just for you, but for your audience.  You also need to be good at a few more things, such as good quality content, titles that will get people to actually read the content, and hopefully marketing to get people to find you in the first place.  This is where Domain Names come in to play.  If you are writing about a very specific niche topic, then you absolutely need to have a domain that is relevant.  Does this mean you absolutely have to have an exact match domain name?  No, but it certainly helps the reader understand exactly what the site is about.  Lets look deeper into some examples.

Build For Now With Exact Match Domains, Or Build For The Long Haul?

If you want to build the best niche site about Star Wars Action Figures from the Original Trilogy, would it be better to have the website titled – ActionFiguresFromThe80s.com, or would it be better to call it StarWarsOriginalTrilogyActionFigures.com?

Assuming there are no trademark concerns, this brings up an interesting discussion.  If you are only in it to write a few pages of content, and try to rank quickly, then certainly the domain that includes the name Star Wars would be more appropriate?  Why, because it is a much smaller niche.  You are talking specifically about 3 movies, and the action figures from those.

So if a person is searching for a Luke Skywalker action figure from the original trilogy, then when the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) displays your domain name, you are much more likely to get a click.  After all, that is the goal, right?

Not so fast… what if you want to make alot of money and realize that there are a ton of people out there that search for information about action figures.  Maybe, if you grew up in the 80s like I did… most of your childhood experiences revolved around Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers, etc. (Side note… pathetic that Hollywood is so uncreative that these are still 3 of the bigger franchises in movies today).

So a website targeted toward action figures from the 80s would actually be a better solution… as it allows for growth.  It is really difficult to talk about GI Joe and Cobra on a Star Wars site… but yes, it can be done, successfully.

What do you think?  I personally prefer the EMD, as it doesn’t make a user think hard about what my site is all about.