Exact Match Domain, now what?

[killianmckay]

So I've managed to get an exact match domain name for the keyword I want to compete in. 3-way-sex is the domain (it's a .com) and "3 way sex" is the keyword. Currently, according to the SERP checker I looked at, I'm not in the top 300 results, but I'm brand new so I expect that. I don't expect a full course on SEO, but can anyone give me some bullet points to use my matching name and my site to get higher in the results? Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Tent Pitcher]

The two most important things in my experience are 1) time and 2) relevant content.

Make sure you have well-formed landing pages with meta descriptions and descriptive text that is visible to users (not just images). Be careful to avoid any "spammy" techniques like keyword stuffing or excessive redirects.

You will probably notice an initial bump in your search engine visibility in the first couple of months - this is there way of introducing your site and gauging user response. If search engines didn't do this, new sites would never be able to rise through the rankings. After that, you will likely sink back down in the rankings - how much depends on that initial push. At that point you will find yourself where the bulk of site owners find themselves as well - hovering somewhere in the middle. This is when it pays to do some marketing to build backlinks and visibility (with AdWords, JuicyAds, etc.).

Don't make too many changes too quickly once your site places in the rankings, but do keep your content fresh. Don't try to game the engines, they've seen it all before. Most importantly, be patient - the time a site has been online is a heavily weighted metric in search engine algorithms.

Good luck!

[killianmckay]

Thanks for your reply. One more question. My keyword friendly domain and another domain I have are descriptive of the same content. I want to just point them both at the same website and consolidate the traffic. Is this a no-no? Is it better to have lots of sites on the same topic, or one site with lots of domains? Thank you.

[Tent Pitcher]

It is not a no-no, but there is a right way and a few wrong ways to do it. You need to make sure that your secondary domain is pointed to the main one using a 301 (permanent) redirect, this will ensure that you get maximum "link juice" from the secondary domain. You can do this through your domain registrar.

[Tent Pitcher]

I should also note that my above reply is somewhat contentious among SEO "experts"...

Some people think that it is better to duplicate content with multiple domain names and then use the canonical meta tag to point back to your main site, i.e., on the secondary site pages add a meta tag like so:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mainsite.com/whatever" />

Personally, I think the major engines are smart enough to determine duplicate content regardless, but I thought I'd throw it out there.