There seems to be some confusion for some people out there (individuals, business owners, employees and consultants like Search Engine Optimisers) as to whether you should include your main keyword in your domain name.
For example, if my main keyword I want to rank for in the search engines is “serp tracking”, should I be using a domain like serptracking.com?
The quick answer in my opinion is “Yes, if you can.”, but it’s not imperative. Having your keyword phrase in your domain name is just one “piece of the SEO pie”. There are dozens and dozens of important (and less important) factors that affect how well your website will rank (including title tag, text, internal linking, number and quality of backlinks, and so much more). Off-site SEO (aka backlinking) is, in my opinion, the best way of achieving a high ranking – far more important than on-site SEO (on-site SEO is also important, but not as important).
View my post backlinks: everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask!
Ok now, consider this: Adobe is #1 out of 1+ billion results for the keyword phrase “click here.” Why? Largely because of off-page factors, not because “click here” is in their domain name.
Click here to see for yourself (link will open up in a new browser window).
From the Google website: “In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”
So having your main keyword (or any keyword that you want to use) in your domain name isn’t really important. So why do I say “Yes, if you can.”? Because not everyone is willing to put in a considerable amount of effort (namely into backlinking) over months and years to make it unnecessary!
However, we all need whatever SEO help we can get in the early days. So try and select a domain name that reflects your main keyword. Preferably in the .com or .net space as Google.com has a slight preference (IMHO) when indexing for these domains (unless you are providing a country specific product or service, then buy a domain in your country space eg. serptracking.com.au for Australia).
If you domain name isn’t available, then try variations, like serp-tracking.com, serp-tracking-software.com, etc.
What happens if you’ve already got a domain? Try subdomaining! Costs you nothing and you can create as many subdomains as you want. For example you could go for serptracking.mydomain.com
So in summary, if my main keyword phrase is serp tracking, then:
- For brand new domains, try and get one that reflects your main keyword (eg. serptracking.com).
- For older domains, either use friendly URLs (eg. http://mydomain.com/products/serp-tracking-software.html), or create a subdomain (eg. http://serptracking.mydomain.com)
- Ensure your HTML <title> tag reflects your main keyword phrase.
- Backlink the hell out of your domain! But be sure to use white-hat techniques and link from authoritative/quality websites.
Posted by Mark Read 
