People often ask whether keywords are essential when registering domain names. At one point, it was advantageous to have keywords in your domain name for ranking in search results, but Google no longer considers it as a factor. However, there are still many good reasons for picking a domain name that has a good keyword in it.
The first reason is that your search result listing does show your domain name next to the page title and the description. When people are looking through the search results, they’re going to be expecting some sort of correlation between title description and the domain name. They’re going to be selective of what they click based on how well matched the domain is with the title and description, which can indirectly affect your search listing performance. The popularity of your listing is going to determine how well you rank in the search results.
The second reason is Google Adwords. When you’re running advertisements, the domain name displays alongside the ad, and it’s the same as in the search results. You’re going to have your title, domain name, and some ad verbiage. It’s essential to have a relevant domain name next to the ad. Think about it in terms of picking domain names for people and not necessarily for the search engine. When people are looking for a solution to a problem, they’re checking the relevance of results because they don’t want to go to the wrong place. For a long time, less informed businesses have been using dark patterns to trick people into clicking. People are getting wise, and you must have a matching domain name.
Another area where this is important is Facebook ads. Relevance is essential when someone sees an ad and will affect your click-through-rate. People are trying to decide if they can trust what you’re saying or what you’re selling. For example, if I were selling a necklace and the matching domain name said, freds-neon-signs.com people would be suspicious, and they wouldn’t click. You want to have people seeing your domain name and realizing, “Yeah, that’s what these people do, and I can trust them.”
In other areas where you’re going to be advertising, your domain name may be showing up as well. Plus, when you’re sharing with people or creating links in emails or articles and blog posts, there’s nothing more suspicious than fake domains or something irrelevant.
As internet users, we see these misleading links all the time. We may filter them out without thinking, and you need to understand the mental process that people go through when they’re deciding whether to click on something or not.
I do think it’s vital that you get a domain name that has keywords in it that are relevant to your business or your industry or just even a specific promotion that you’re running. However, it won’t directly get counted by search engines. It will instead affect human behavior.