My Travels on the Net

I knew the words in a domain name were important but yesterday I got a lesson in just how important a domain name is to ranking well in Google.

I’m working with a new client who is a mortgage broker in Virginia. His domain name is http://www.theresponsiblemortgagelender.com/ and we’ve been working on his website for about three weeks now. The site is live but there is no content on the pages. It’s just a shell right now while we fine tune the graphics and work on the content.

So, when he called me yesterday to tell me he got a call from a highly qualified lead who found him by searching Google for “Virginia responsible mortgage lender”, I was pretty surprised. The first two results were my client’s blog but what was especially surprising was that his website ranked #8! This is a website that has no page content, no meta tags or links to it…and within three weeks of being live ranks on the first page of Google for one of his most important key phrases.

At first, he thought I was a super genius but I had to be honest and tell him I really couldn’t take credit for it. Other than designing the site to be search engine friendly, I hadn’t done anything to justify such fast results. The only reason I could think of for why he ranked so well for “Virginia responsible mortgage lender” was because “responsible”, “mortgage” and “lender” are words in his domain name and the word “Virginia” is in his address at the bottom of each page.

What’s the lesson in all of this? You’re probably tempted to use your business name as your domain name but in most cases you’re going to rank well for that any way. Besides, any one searching on your domain name knows who you are. Most of your prospects don’t know your name, so why not rank well for the phrases they’re searching on? If possible, use the words your clients and prospects use in your domain name. Your website WILL rank better as a result.

Labels: domain name responsible mortgage lender