Question

Topic: SEO/SEM

.com Or .net

Posted bysaleson8/10/2012 at 8:26 PM ET 250 Points
What are the pros and cons of using either domain? I own both but currently use the .com for my main website. Most of my traffic is search engine based and I get organic first page results with the keywords: black chandelier and black crystal chandelier

I own black-chandelier.com & blackchandelier.net.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted bySteveByrneMarketingon8/10/2012 at 9:00 PM Accepted
    You don't really own both, blackchandelier.com is owned by a fashion company in Salt Lake City.

    I would still suggest you use the hyphenated domain you do own - black-chandelier.com (.com is for commercial), and then you should be able to your point "blackchandelier.net" to your site as well.

    Also, your home page title tag reads ...
    BLACK CHANDELIERS | The Ultimate Buying Guide

    ... which is your name and a completely generic phrase. For better SEO performance, you should come up with a dozen or more keyword phrases that your customers are mostly likely to use to find chandeliers for sale.

    Wouldn't you like to get traffic from people looking to buy chandeliers more generally before narrowing your traffic to just black chandeliers?

    Steve
  • Posted bysaleson8/10/2012 at 9:57 PM Author
    也许我应该澄清我的问题。我是revamping my website and would like to use the domain that would be most advantageous to my business. My clients generally are only looking for black chandeliers. I cannot get the organic results required by trying to attract general lighting buyers. I have a very niche market. I have tried to market to general chandelier buyers thru paid advertising and had no results. I also want to clarify that I own both: black-chandelier.com & black chandelier.net.
  • Posted bySteveByrneMarketingon8/11/2012 at 12:32 AM Member
    I understand the comments in your reply.

    1. Use black-chandelier.com. You can register this url (and profile information) with all the search engines (although I'm not sure about the status of hand submissions with google and the like). Use "black chandelier" keywords for page title tags, in your website copy, tagging social media content, etc. It's working for you now, it will continue to work for you.

    2. "My clients generally are only looking for black chandeliers". How do you know your prospects only use "black chandelier" for a web search. For example, your competitors are using the keyword phrase "dining room chandeliers". How many use this search phrase, never see your site, and then go on to buy a black chandelier. And I didn't say anything about "general lighting", that's your phrase. I said "keyword phrases that your customers are mostly likely to use to find chandeliers for sale". Research will tell you what those phrases should be, and I bet you didn't involve a professional marketer in your previous attempt.

    I think you need more help than is practical for the KHE forum. You could get a referral for a web development and SEM consultant, check the profiles of the many excellent practitioners on this site, or post this as a project at:
    //www.369da.com/ea/pfh_addco.asp

    Hope this helps,

    Steve
  • Posted bySteveByrneMarketingon8/11/2012 at 2:05 AM Member
    One last thing, your black chandelier competitors are also using more segmented keyword phrases such as "gothic chandelier", which is just one of many you can uncover with good research and a sufficient amount of time invested.

    gothicchandelierlighting.com is an available domain.

    There are several domains available that may work better than your hyphenated dot com.

  • Posted byGary Bloomeron8/11/2012 at 10:15 AM Member
    This article might help you:https://webdesign.about.com/od/domains/a/dot_com_versus_dot_biz.htm
  • Posted bymgoodmanon8/11/2012 at 10:31 AM Accepted
    Use the .com domain.

    Steve is giving you the right advice. Don't be defensive.

    The only advantage of the .net domain is it lets you use the name without the hyphen. I think the .com approach is going to serve you well, even with the hyphen. But you may want to expand your keyword list as Steve suggests.
  • Posted on8/11/2012 at 1:19 PM Accepted
    Pardon me if I am slightly off-topic. But since you're asking about issues related to SEO/SEM for your site, I have to contribute my thoughts...

    The domain name is, of course, important, but you are missing so many other opportunities to properly utilize SEO techiques.

    I visited your site. Nice concept. I love businesses that serve a niche market. However, there were some problems that jumped out at me...

    Product Pages: Each product page should have unique text, descriptive of the product. I went into the medallions product section and each page I clicked on had the same exact text, except for the price. Google craves very descriptive words.

    Navigation: Text based navigation, linking each of the products in each category, as well as to other product categories on the site is another way to take advantage of SEO. It also makes the site much more user-friendly for busy visitors. Every page should have, minimally, navigation to the major pages in the site. The site header image should link back to the home page in case a visitor gets "lost."

    Product Descriptions/Page URLs: Give each product a different name; "product-med4.html" is not a name that gets search engines "excited." Use header tags (h1, h2, etc.) to call attention to the names of each product. Google gives more weight to text enveloped in header tags. If you are targeting interior designers, redesigners or other professionals who use their own language terms to describe these products, changes are they will search by these terms. It might be worth it to get some information from the manufacturers or a trip to the library might be in order to beef up your product descriptions.

    Page Titles: Use descriptive words in page titles as well. From a branding standpoint and depending on who your target market is, I would avoid mentioning price (i.e. "from $189") unless your customer is a bargain hunter.

    Images: Again, another opportunity to take advantage of hungry Google spiders! Name each picture with a clearly descriptive name and include Alt tags (a brief keyword-rich description of what the item is).

    Blog: You have a blog that was last updated in 2010. If you're not going to keep it current, I would chuck it. Don't feel bad, I am guilty of the same crime so I ended mine until I have more time to devote to it.

    Site Map: Add one to the site. Google LOVES them for indexing. A site map is simply a listing of all the pages. Again, Google loves 'em.

    Social Media: I only saw images of MySpace and Twitter logos. They weren't actual working links. Definitely invest the time (they're all free to set up) in Facebook and Pinterest and Google+. You have great products that lend themselves well to SM, especially Facebook and Pinterest. Adding share capabilities to each product page image is great for SEO, not to mention getting products in front of potential customers in general!

    Set up an account with Google Adwords to search for keywords to include in all I've described above. That should give your SEO efforts much more "muscle."

    Hope I haven't overwhelmed you. Again, I think you have a great concept.

    Best of luck!
  • Posted bymgoodmanon8/11/2012 at 6:32 PM Moderator
    Great reminders from designerdawnnie. Thank you. I'm going to double-check all the websites for which we have responsibility to make sure we've taken all the recommended steps. It's too easy to overlook these important SEO boosters.
  • Posted on8/12/2012 at 12:01 AM Member
    You're very welcome, mgoodman! Always a pleasure to lend a keyboard...
  • Posted on8/12/2012 at 12:05 AM Member
    You're very welcome, Michael! Always a pleasure to lend a keyboard...
  • Posted bysaleson8/12/2012 at 12:48 PM Author
    Thanks to everyone for the input and suggestions...
  • Posted byexcelliraon8/13/2012 at 12:53 PM Member
    This is a late addition but some thoughts:

    When you 301 redirect you lose some link juice. It's small but you have to consider this when changing domain names. You don't want to do it frivolously.

    Also, Google will read blackchandelier and black-chandelier the same. There is no benefit to switching to the .net domain. They see dashes as spacer characters. If you owned a spammy multi-hyphened domain (black-chandelier-mounting-plates-made-from-brass.com) I'd likely suggest the opposite. But one hyphen isn't much of a concern.

  • Posted bysaleson8/13/2012 at 1:24 PM Author
    My thoughts are to keep the hyphenated .com and forward the .net version to it. For ease I thought when mentioning the website to potential customers, I would give the blackchandelier.net thus making sure they dont mistype or forget the hyphen. Using the hyphenated version for the search engines primarily.
    Is there a downside to the forward....if so maybe i should use the .net to create a site that sells vintage or antique black versions only and keep the 2 separate(.com and .net)?
    thanks for the follow up
  • Posted byexcelliraon8/13/2012 at 2:13 PM Member
    No, not really unless people are linking to the .net version.

    Make sure that the domain forward from .net to .com is a 301 redirect.

    I'd be hesitant to suggest that you build another site. I looked at your site briefly in the past but haven't this time around. If like the other suggest that you have a lot of work to do to the existing one, adding another to the fold will only cause distraction and result in two sites needing work.

  • Posted bysaleson8/13/2012 at 4:35 PM Author
    Thanks...I am probably going to revamp completely. I need a site that be updates and changes made on the fly. Any suggestion? cms or otherwise?
  • Posted byexcelliraon8/13/2012 at 5:13 PM Member
    We primarily Develop sites with Drupal and have developed a very SEO-friendly solution as our base build. So SEO is baked in from the start (big surprise considering what we do, no? ;-)

    There are two very good shopping cart Modules for Drupal that are robust. We've built a number of eCommerce sites with them and I operate a site of my own on one of them.

    The above isn't intended to push you towards us or Drupal. Drupal isn't the only solution and it isn't ideal for every project. Nor are we. There are a number of great CMSs and shopping carts out there. If you'd like to discuss on the phone I'd be happy to point out some strengths and weaknesses of Drupal and some other platforms we have worked with. You can reach me via my profile page. There's no pressure on the sales stuff either. :-)
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