Keywords As Marketing Strategy

[From_Beyond]

Seems like stuffing the keywords every place you can is a good idea, which then goes down to the level of domain. Lot's of people knock themselves out trying to obtain a domain like:
keyword1-keyword2.com (http://www.keyword1-keyword2.com)

But in competitive niches, this is not really feasible. Or is it? I've been finding that with creativity I can still work in those keywords and still have my keyword laden domain, like keyword1-keyword2.com (http://www.keyword1-keyword2.com) .

Or all the good domains really taken?

Any thoughts?

[rustybrick]

There are many that will argue with the statement, "keywords in URLs make have a positive impact on rankings." However, I was recently shown a study conducted by Alan Webb, which proved keywords in a domain name do have a positive impact on rankings. You can find out more detail about this study here (http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/en/forum/viewtopic/t-775.html). note: might removed link later, depending on new policies

But I personally hate domain names with hyphens in them. A thread was started on this topic in the search engine optimization forum (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/showthread.php?t=87).

[From_Beyond]

That's a good link.

Something I neglected to mention is that the likelihood of someone clicking on your search listing (clickability) may be increased simply because Google is bolding all instances of a keyword within a listing, and if the keyword is in the domain, the bolding will make your listing stand out that much more.

So in respect to getting a user to click on your serp, having the keywords in the domain can help.

[seobook]

keywords can increase clickthrough rate when a user sees the listing (especially on ads)

the single biggest effect of keywords in the url is being able to get inbound links with your keywords in them by having people link to your "official" site name.

this means when you register your site with directories you will be able to have your keywords in the text links whereas others will be stuck needing to work that much harder getting other keyword rich text links to rank as well for the same phrases that you can easily rank well for.

[Hungryfish]

I agree with SEOBOOK,
Specifically if you are a "Branded" product or service

[bwelford]

Well I come from the other school of thought. I think you should work hard to find a company name, which is the same as your domain name, and which you "own" on the Internet. This way you stand a chance of being the only web pages that appear for your name.

If you're trying to "own" a series of keywords and you're having to insert hyphens in domain names, then I think you're bound to end up in an optimization or bidding war on these keywords. Your chances of winning that game are very much slimmer.