Does having multiple domain names help SEO?

There are many diverse ways to boost your search engine optimisation and create leads for your website, but does having multiple domain names help SEO?

This can seem like an unnecessary additional cost, and an extra layer of admin to keep track of.

However, any specialist in SEO West Midlands-based worth their salt will tell you it’s a sound investment.

This article explains why, and the various benefits of having more than one domain name.

To clarify, this is not the same as having more than one website which you need to build or update.

Instead, we are focussing on registering a range of different domain names and then configuring them so they all lead to your home page, or varying them to lead to specific pages on your website. This is something we regularly do as part of our web design services for Shropshire and West Midland clients.

Casting your SEO net out wide

Making your products or services as ‘searchable’ as possible is commercial common sense and there are both easy and more advanced SEO techniques you can use. The more you use, the more leads you will generate.

It’s believed that as much as 68% of all online activity starts with a Google search, which is why keywords are so important.

However, something that can be too easily overlooked is the importance of a domain name in SEO. You need your customers to type your address into browsers and find you.

The ideal situation is that you have covered a wide range of variations that your customers may search on., especially as your customer may have a mental blip and typed your domain name in with a common flaw. So, for example, if you sell Green Devices and your main company internet address is www.greendevices.co.uk, if you also register for greendevices.uk, customers will still find you if their typing is sloppy. As long as Google assists of course.

Also, the terminology that you feel is clear can be open to interpretation to people searching for you and your products. For instance, if your company is called Green Devices and that’s what you sell, what if someone searches for Eco-Friendly Devices? If you have registered ecofriendlydevices.com in your family of domain names, you will scoop up more of those potential customers too.

Registering multiple domain names for defence

This SEO method is also an important way to protect your brand and ringfence the sort of terms customers use when searching for you or your products.

It comes down to this; if you don’t scoop up a range of relevant domain names, your competitors might grab them and put you in the shade. Your more ruthless rivals may take great delight in buying up domain names similar to yours, or with your product descriptions encased in them, drawing away customers who search for you and pointing them to your competitor’s alternatives.

Once a competitor owns a domain name that undercuts your search traffic, there is little or nothing you can do about it!

Unless you can argue in court that you own that trade mark - and that isnt that easy to do.

Holding on to product names

Some domain names you purchase will help you when people search for specific products, rather than on your company name.

Let’s illustrate that scenario using the mythical Green Devices company again. If one of your products is called the Eco-Friendly Widget but you don’t register greenwidget.co.uk as a domain name to lead to that page, a rival company could snap it up, redirecting users searching for that product and those who mistakenly think your company name is Green Widgets.

Creative digital marketing

There are also ways to use fresh domain names as part of innovative online marketing, enabling customers to search for your products as part of special campaigns and discounts.

For example, your Green Widget is truly wonderful and is currently available for a great price. To take advantage, invite customers to search for wonderwidget and make sure that wonderwidget.co.uk leads to a promotional landing page.

The cost is often minimal

This can seem like an expensive way to cover all your bases and make sure your customers find you. It’s all part of the misconception that good SEO carries a big price tag. Something that often comes when people see the cost of Google paid search activities.

In fact, many ways to attract more traffic to your website are surprisingly simple and cost very little. Registering multiple domain names is a great example of cost-effective SEO, as buying multiple addresses with similar names can be inexpensive.

For example, Greendevices.co.uk is £60.00 for the first 2 years and you can add greendevices.net for the same, and so on. To see more domain name pricing please visit this page.

Does having multiple domain names help SEO if you’re a new business?

One of the most depressing SEO statistics is that over 90% of pages get no organic Google search traffic. For many organisations, especially eCommerce ventures, this is simply a very sad fact!

To avoid this, if you’re launching a new venture, then of course your need to do extensive research into keywords and the best ways to create good SEO on your new website.

You are unlikely at this stage to be 100% confident that all your potential customers will type your website address correctly, or that they will use flawless terminology when searching for your products.

The more domain names you register, the more chance you have of casting a wide enough net in those crucial first months.

You may see some important statistics from your analytics as well – terms that feature heavily in searches that can help you track down more relevant domain names going forwards.

Does having multiple domain names help SEO?

Casting your SEO net out wide