You may have a website that is a few years old and have page rank of 2 or 3 just because of the age of your website. The reason why Google give you the page rank is because your website is still operating after these few years and still operating business online. After making good money online, you decide to revamp your website to new, better looking design and more effective website. But you do not want to loss your page rank that you build these few years, what can you do? Or you want to use a different domain name that is more targeted to your niche?

One of the best way is to redirect your old URL to the new URL that is SEO friendly. This can be done in your hosting using C-panel. In your hosting under Domain, click “Redirects”. See picture below.

You will be brought to the “Redirect” page. Here you add instruct your hosting to redirect the old URLs to the new one. See below picture.

Here you will need to choose “Permanent (301)”. This is to tell the search engine spider that your URL address has change permanently to the new one. Next is to choose the domain name under the  “All Public Domains”. This is the old domain name URL, and type in the URL after choosing the domain name under “old-url”. Next is to type in the new URL at the “redirects to” and click “Add”. And you are all done now.

There is something that I need to share with you, is that once you do the redirect to a new URL, some of the page ranking will be lost. What is the reason that is been lost? Imagine that you have are squeezing a full new toothpaste empty, do you realized that there will be some left in the tube? Its the same situation for the page rank lost too.

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A friend recently asked me about domain name purchase, he is starting a local business. And read ProBlogger’s recent post on Localized Domain Name, I like to share what I know on this topic.  I recommended to him that he should go ahead with a local domain name instead of a universal one. Here are some of the reason why he should get a local domain name:

1) Localized Domain Name can be purchases easily. With a country short form at the back of the domain name, you can purchase a name that is short and easy to remember for your offline business. As far as I know, the four and below characters domain name has been owned by someone who started their website the beginning of Internet. If your business is about local sports, then it will be a good idea to buy the domain name “www.Sports.com.(Country Short Form)”. I am sure that most will be available for sale, as long as you get it soon.

2) Localized Domain Name can rank well in local search engines easily. The search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing give special attention for those domain names that is a localized domain name. The main reason is not known, but I suspect that it helps them to differentiate local websites service to international service websites. Another reason may be that in some countries in order to own a localized domain name, you need to register a company with the local government. Because of this, the search engines love to rank the localized domain name well, as they are accredited from the local government, and with a registered company. Of course there are some countries that do not require to register a company and still get a local domain name.

3) Localized Domain Name is very targeted for the local community. Have you ever done a search before, when you enter the website, you found out that the product or service is for another country. I have been there before, and I guess that you have at least one or two experiences like that. With a country name short form at the back of the domain name, it helps your local searchers to differentiate from other same services that are from other region.

To answer the question in the title of this post, it will depend if the audiences you are targeting are only locals or local services. If your audiences are internationally, then it will be a better choice for you to purchase a dot Com or a dot Net domain name instead. Well if you have difficulties in choosing a good domain name, I suggest you read “How to choose the right domain name“.

I like to hear from your views, what other advantages are there when you purchased a localized domain name, I will be glad to hear and answer your questions. Cheers!!!

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Have you seen websites that have a website URL that you do not know what the page will be about? Yes of course you do, and many more will be created because they (webmasters or web designers) do not know the importance of SEO. In order for your website to have the best web page being optimized for SEO, your URL should also be able SEO for the best result.

What is a URL?

URL is also called Uniform Resource Locator or previously known as Uniform Resource Identifier. You can read more about what is URL here.

Why would I recommend to use the URL in a SEO approach? There are 2 reasons why:

Reason 1 – The search engines like Google likes it when you can help them to find out what is the keyword you are targeting. Like on-page optimization for your web page, telling the search engines that the web page is relevant to what the online searchers are looking for in the same way, the URL that has the keyword for the web page will help you in the SEO for your web page.

Reason 2 – It will be easy for your online searchers to find out what your web page is about by looking at the URL. Take for example “www.YourDomainName.com/seo-webpage/”, you will see that the web page is talking about SEO webpage from the URL.

Another tip that can help you further increase your SEO in your web page using the URL is to create a folder named under the keyword you are targeting. For example if you are in the golf niche, there are other sub niche keywords of golf like “golf ball” or “golf club”. So in the end your URL will look like “www.YourDomainName.com/golfclub/howtoswingbetter/”, don’t you think that using this type of URL will further help the search engines and your online searchers know that whether the web page is what they are looking for.

Using Capital Letters For URL?

Most of the SEO website do not use capital letters in the first alphabet as it will be quite annoying to the human eyes, although it helps the readers to read better. Another way to further help your readers and search engines, is to add in a space. Instead of a space you add in a ‘horizontal bar’ to add as spacing between words, and the end result will look like this “www.YourDomainName.com/how-to-swing-better“. Don’t you think it looks better and more readable for you and your readers too?

So remember to do your keyword research first before you plan what your web page URL should be, make it easy for the search engines and readers, if you help them they will help you back, especially the search engines.

That will be all for the day, if you have additional details to add, please feel free to comment below. I will be awaiting for your participation.

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Choosing a domain name for your website is like choosing a name for your child, it is that important. It tells the whole world what your website is all about. Here are some of the characteristics of a good domain name:

Great domain names are easy to remember

Names like Google.com, Amazon.com, Napster.com, Skype.com, etc… has name that are easy to remember. These names typically sound nice, easy to spell and sounds like a new word. If you are able to create a new lingo word from something that has the above three characteristics, it will let the world remember you for a very long long time

Great domain names are usually short

This is one of the keys in selecting a great domain name, short. There are several reasons for having it short. Logos can be easily fitted with the domain name as it requires lesser space, gets your website branding up, harder to misspell, and it can be very recognizable. Short domain names also help in placing ads in PPC, where there are only 35 characters inclusive of the dot com or dot net of the domain. I would recommend have two to three words the most in the domain name, as this will be easier to remember.

Great domain names relates to your business

This will tell your targeted audience what your core business is all about. Like Amazon.com, it tells you that the things they are selling are like the Amazon River, that has thousand and thousand of stuff in their store. Also it is good to make the domain name unique that is different, yet still tells the world the two are from the same core business.

There are three types of domain names that are usually used:

Catchy domain name:  This is one of the best ways to get people to remember your website domain name. Domain names like Amazon.com, Skype.com, Sony.com, etc…

Trade Mark domain name: Names like Sony.com, Coke.com, are trademarked. Be sure to check out the trademark database for your country or go to the US Patent and Trademark database to check with them. You will get into trouble with their company name in your domain name.

SEO domain name: This is the keywords that usually searchers type when looking for your product or services. This will help in giving good ranking to the search result in your website. The domain names will look something like this: DivingResorts.com, BestHolidayTrips.com, etc… You will have to do some keyword research to find out what are the keywords searchers are typing in the search result.

There are some sites that can help you in choosing a great domain name, here are the sites:

1)      www.MakeWords.com

2)      www.NameBoy.com

3)      www.DomainFellow.com

4)      www.DomainNameSoup.com

In summary, choosing a great domain name will determine the future of your website, be sure to choose the correct one. Decide what type of domain suits your business best, sometimes you can find that your domain name can be a combination of both types of choosing domain name. Try the above 4 sites to explore the most suitable name for your website.

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