Is a Keyword Domain Really a Big Deal?

Keyword domains; aka exact match domains have been a popular marketing tool since the very dawn of SEO. They have also been questionable and sometimes controversial along the way. The question you must be asking yourself is “are keyword domains still a big deal today?”.

Exact Match Domains in Brief

An exact match domain is a domain name that matches the exact keywords you would use in your SEO profile.  In the example of a Facebook marketing agency in Clapham, the EMDs would be facebookmarketingclapham.com.

When SEO was still a relatively new concept, the interpretation of the use of keywords was still somewhat unsophisticated. At the time, you could still get away with keyword stuffing and the presence of prominent keywords in your domain made a huge difference to your SEO progression.

As with all aspects of SEO it did not take long for people to start using and abusing this tactic, you suddenly had hundreds or even thousands of businesses using EDMs to climb the SERP rankings and often deliberately using misleading keywords to pull in traffic to subsequently redirect it to their main website.

Google and its counterparts have become far more capable in the detection and prevention of these kinds of tactics; however this does not mean that a relevant keyword domain is not still a big deal in todays competitive SEO landscape.

It suggests that you have to take into account both the positives and negatives of using exact match domains.

The Benefits of Using an Exact Match Domain

Taking a look at the positives, an exact match domain that is relevant to your website gives the major search engines an instant and accurate overview of what it is you do, this means that if the rest of your site and your SEO campaign are up to scratch, it could work massively in your favour.

When featured in the SERP listings, an EDM can also be attractive to customers; it tells them who you are and what you do.  When packaged as part of a strong SEO strategy, EMDs continue to carry a lot of weight.

The Disadvantages of Using an Exact Match Domain

It is still an aspect of SEO that is rife with spam and black-hat strategies; as lots of the best EMDs are already unavailable it can be difficult to find something relevant to your business.

In addition, the fact that long-tail search terms are taking over as the new standard means that the concise combinations of keywords used in EDMs are not quite as effective as they used to be. This trend is set to continue indefinitely, alongside the growth in popularity of voice search and smart speaker technology.

EDMs can therefore still be a big deal, but are not quite as easy to score points with as they once did.