Using other domain names - any value/point?

[Ken Figenus]

I long bought:

'exactlywhatmybusinessdoes'.wales

as I thought it potentially great for search results being regional and it describing the business perfectly - say like 'SwimmingPoolsSwansea.Wales'

My web guy sort of poo pooed it all compared to the businessname.com we use and said it bad to alos put the current .com website on that domain :-(

Is there really no value to these guys and no point using them for good organic search results?

Cheers

[C350Akra]

How much effort are you putting in to complete the links available in the .wales website you own? It will only be useful if it contains the majority of information on Welsh businesses.

[mw88]

I think the world of SEO has moved on from the days of keyword stuffing in domain names. We used to register all sorts for customers and create basic HTML sites that were full of random content with a certain keyword density.

Also, if your customers aren't really savvy enough to know about TLDs like .Wales, .London etc trying to get them to email you can be a major pain - People expect .com/.co.uk and will most likely try to email superswimmingpools.wales.com or something like that

[akirk]

If there is a specific welsh element to your business, as well as a non-welsh element then you can split them if you feel there is value, but to be honest the simplest approach is one domain (e.g. .com) and focus your attentions on that - don't be distracted by splitting your focus...

[Canute]

There is little benefit from this in terms of Google giving it any preference as it used to as mentioned above, however, it can still be advantageous from an SEO angle if you have a good link building strategy as it allows you to build anchor text rich backlinks more aggressively than non-EMD (Exact Match Domains) as it's the website name, essentially Google can't so easily penalise/spank you for having your business/website name being used more aggressively.

But EMD domains, are perhaps less easy to make memorable as brands, so there can be some trade-off there.

[akirk]

One of the biggest errors businesses make online is to ask how can they game Google / move up the ranking...
If instead they were to ask how could they most effectively market their business to their customers (i.e. think traditional offline marketing methods but online), then it is amazing how well those techniques push you up Google

[Ken Figenus]

Thanks guys. Looks like there is no additional mileage in getting found online as a local welsh business via Google search using, say, SwimmingPoolsSwansea.wales compared to say PoolParadise.com ? Bit odd that there is no extra relevance but I guess why I asked people who know more than me.

Cheers - and if only i had a pool to chill in!