Today we are going to discuss , how to start an internet business from a SEO Perspective.
1) Buy OLD Domain Name instead of New one:
From my experience, I recommend buying old domain names instead of new ones. As I have seen old domains performing better in search engine’s ranking wise than new ones. Not only with age comes trust and authority but it is easier to rank high in google with old domains names compared to new ones. Microsoft has filed a patent on October 10, 2006 for Ranking Domains Using Domain Maturity and google has a similar patent as well.
If you are wondering where to buy old domain names then Domain Tools is the place to do so. They provide excellent option to search for expiring domain names via their Advance Auction Search Page. You can search domains based on TLDs ( .com, .net, .org or other ), Dmoz or Yahoo Listing, Age, Rank, Length, Alphabetically or Registration Year.
2) Get Exact Match Keyword Domain If Possible:
When it comes to Exact Match Keyword Domain name, then you are allowed to make exception to point #1. Google really loves exact match keyword domains and gives them special treatment. For example, if you go to google and search for Bikram Mann you are going to see my site www.bikrammann.com in the top 10 results as of today. To be honest, I have not done any link building optimization as of this post writing but still i rank in top 10 results for my domain keyword. You can also see another example from my previous post Importance of Exact Match Domain Name. to clear your doubts further.
3) Get Top Level Domain Name Extension:
.Com Extension of the domain name is the most popular and it is considered the industry standard. Just take a look at all the big brand’s COCA-COLA,TIFFANY, PEPSI, MICROSOFT, GOOGLE etc. They all use .Com Extension of the domain as their main website. Since this version is so popular, even if you end up developing a brand name on different extension, people will still search your brand name by adding .com at the end of the brand keyword. Moreover, .com version of the domain name will always rank higher in search for that particular domain keyword ( which you are going to end up developing a brand )compared to other extensions.
If you can afford, I would recommend that you buy .net, .org and .co.uk along with .com version of the domain name. Because in the near future, once you develop a brand name, over 50% of your traffic is going to come via your brand keyword. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to want bite off your pie which you earned by your hard work. So, what they might do is register .net, .org or .co.uk version of your domain name and start generating profit of your brand.
Now you might be thinking, even if i buy these four domain name extensions what about the rest 200 plus extension left ? To answer this question lets take an example that if somebody buys .de extension of the domain name and launches a competing website to feed off the brand name. Now what you can do is launch .net, .org and .co.uk version of the domain name and push him down the search results. Extensions .com, .net and org will always rank higher than any other extension of the domain. If you are big brand then you can also register a trademark for your brand keyword and take violator’s domain by filling trademark infringement case against them.
4) Renew the Domain Name for Length of 10 Years:
On October 11, 2006 Google filed a patent ENTITY DISPLAY PRIORITY IN A DISTRIBUTED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM in which there is an interesting line on page 2, #40 about domain name registration.
40. The method of claim 38, wherein the domain-related information is related to at least one of an expiration date of the domain, a domain name server record associated with the domain, and a name server associated with the domain.
In simple English the above would mean that Google can calculate a score based on expiration date of the domain, name server records associated with that domain, and a name server associated with the domain. As you can see from the above patent, domain name expiration date does matter in Google search engine ranking. So, it wouldn’t hurt to register the domain for longer period of time.
If you think logically calculating domain name expiration date as search engine ranking factor would make sense. Because a spammer wouldn’t want to register a domain for a period of 10 years, just to throw it away the next year. I would highly recommend that you register your domain name for period of 10 years. As this will show that you are serious about your business and going to be around for long time.
5) Get Dedicated IP Address for your Domain:
If you ask ten different SEO Experts that what role does dedicated IP address play in search engine ranking, you are going to get ten different answers for it. The truth is Google algorithm does favor sites with dedicated IP addresses vs shared IP Addresses. Sometimes having a shared IP address could affect your sites ranking and authority. For example, lets say the IP address where your website is hosted, has 20 other sites hosted as well. Since, you cannot verify niche of sites that are hosted on that particular shared IP address, you could end up becoming a neighbor to wrong sites like gambling, porn, content farms etc. So, Google might put in the same bracket as of those sites.
I would highly recommend that you get a dedicated IP address for your site as there is nothing to loose by doing this. Now days, on most of the hosting providers, you can get a dedicated IP address somewhere between 1 to 3 dollars.
6) Get Reliable Hosting Provider:
It is very important to have a reliable web hosting provider from an seo perspective. Because if your website is having frequent down time, more chances you have of loosing your ranking in search engines. I have seen sites shift from #2 position in google to #5 position within a period of day or two just because the website was down for that period. Now some of you might be thinking, why would google lower the ranking of sites based on their down time. The answer is simple because when your website is down, search engines cannot crawl your site to get updates thus in return affects your ranking. Also, if you are running an e-commerce site it affect your reputation and you are going to loose sales for the period of time your site is down or inaccessible.
7) Get Attractive Web Design Done:
Website Design has nothing to do with search engine ranking in general. But having a professional web design does put good impression on a new customer. To me professional web design symbolizes Quality, Professionalism and Trust. Because getting attractive web design is not cheap at all. It can range anywhere from 2,000 ( starters ) to 10,000 USD ( high end ). Today there is a lot of competition in the internet market, no matter what field you choose but a good design can differentiate you from the others. Not only good design but the choice of colors can make impact on your sales. The impact might not be huge but even if 10 extra people buy from you because of the impression that your web design put on them, you just made some extra money and if we think the whole purpose of SEO is to increase ranking thus increasing the sales in return.
8). Get HTML and CSS validation:
9) Write Killer Title and Meta Description:
10) Use Keywords in Image Names & ALT tags :
11) Use Search Engine Friendly URLs instead of Session ID’s:
12) Provide RSS Feed:
13) Provide HTML and XML Site Map:
14) Have a Privacy Policy and About Page:
15) Have Search Box visible on all pages:
16) Focus on Usability:
17) Have a Company Blog:
18) Add your site to Google Webmaster Tools:
19) Track Traffic with Google Analytics:
20) SEO Copy Writing:
21) Provide Live Chat Option:
22) Show Trust:
23) Have a Favicon Icon for the Address Bar:
24) Have a Robots.txt file
http://www.bikrammann.com/http://www.bikrammann.com/
