Question for Steve P on domain name ...

[brooksr]

Hi Steve,

Love this site.

I'm reading some books on blogging and they suggest choosing a domain name which contain keywords representing the site.

I wonder what your thoughts are on that? In hindsight, would you name the site differently if you had it to do over again?

What domain name advice do you have for those of us that are naming an independent hosting site (vs. blogger.com, etc.)?

Along the same lines, what advice do you have on choosing 'tag lines'?

Thank you.

Brooks

[Jill]

I'm not Steve, but my advice on domain names is to definitely not use generic keywords in it when you can instead brand something memorable.

How silly would it be for Steve's site to be the awfully boring and lame personal-development-forum.com or something else to that effect. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

And the good news is that it won't make an iota of difference to the search engines, if that's what you're worried about.

Your domain name is your brand. Never use a keyworded one when you can use a creative, memorable one.

[Steve Pavlina]

Jill nailed it.

In the field of personal development, there's no single keyword that's so valuable I'd want to design the entire site around it. That's because the field is hugely decentralized in terms of the search terms people use to get into it. People search for info on personal growth, time management, inner peace, goals, problem-solving, spirituality, various book titles, and thousands of other terms. It's all PD-related. Monopolizing a few keywords just doesn't matter. A shotgun approach seems the best strategy under such conditions.

In other fields where the most valuable keywords are obvious and generate massive traffic compared to the also-rans, it makes more sense to target a specific term and try to reach the #1 spot if you have a shot at it.

I made a conscious choice to use my own name as a brand for this site. That wasn't an easy decision, but in retrospect it was the right choice. I wanted to build something unique and not just create a generic depot for PD material.

Most of my traffic comes via word of mouth (esp. links from other blogs), not search engines. I prefer it that way, since it makes me less vulnerable to fluctuations in my search rankings.