There are really two answers to this question. First of all if you are starting a new business, and have yet to register your domain, then yes, register a domain that has your keywords in it. It is best to use hyphenated keywords. The reason for this is if people like to your site naturally, chances are they are going to link to your domain. If you have your keywords in your domain, this will help with your links that you do not receive anchor text.
Hotels.com is a good example. They rank #1 for the keyword hotels, probably because most links pointing to them have the anchor text hotels.com or something similar. This guarantees your anchor text in any links contain the keywords you are shooting for.
Google gives no preference to sites with the keywords in their domain. What I mean is, just because you have the keywords in your domain, does not make Google or any other search engine think your site is more relevant. That's where content and links serve a purpose. Just because you don't have the keywords in your domain does not mean you can't rank well for keywords. It only means that when people naturally link to you, they may not have the anchor text you want. The link is still valuable.
This has been proven by my newest site http://www.article-submission-express.com. So far every link that I have received has the anchor text article submissions. At the time of writing this article I rank on page 11 for article submission, but I am not ranked at all for article submission which is in my domain. Since I only focus on one keyword at a time, even against the advice of my guru friends, I will not be ranked for the keywords in my domain for some time. I like to follow the principles of the human mind, since the goal of search engines is to be as human as possible. Humans can focus on only one thing at a time, therefore my optimization efforts also focus on one thing at a time. I feel that this concentration of my focus will allow me to eventually rank for every major keyword I want, and allow me to monitor each individual one. Thus assuring that ranking for one doesn't hurt my rankings for other keywords.
In conclusion if you have already registered your domain, that is great. Leave it how it is, do not form a new domain simply because you don't have keywords in it. If anything this can trigger duplicate content filters and get both sites punished. Just stick to you regular domain and submit articles and such to a bunch of directories with your keywords in them. This ensures you get the correct anchor text in your links, and these are all one way links that are not penalized by search engines. - 16069
Hotels.com is a good example. They rank #1 for the keyword hotels, probably because most links pointing to them have the anchor text hotels.com or something similar. This guarantees your anchor text in any links contain the keywords you are shooting for.
Google gives no preference to sites with the keywords in their domain. What I mean is, just because you have the keywords in your domain, does not make Google or any other search engine think your site is more relevant. That's where content and links serve a purpose. Just because you don't have the keywords in your domain does not mean you can't rank well for keywords. It only means that when people naturally link to you, they may not have the anchor text you want. The link is still valuable.
This has been proven by my newest site http://www.article-submission-express.com. So far every link that I have received has the anchor text article submissions. At the time of writing this article I rank on page 11 for article submission, but I am not ranked at all for article submission which is in my domain. Since I only focus on one keyword at a time, even against the advice of my guru friends, I will not be ranked for the keywords in my domain for some time. I like to follow the principles of the human mind, since the goal of search engines is to be as human as possible. Humans can focus on only one thing at a time, therefore my optimization efforts also focus on one thing at a time. I feel that this concentration of my focus will allow me to eventually rank for every major keyword I want, and allow me to monitor each individual one. Thus assuring that ranking for one doesn't hurt my rankings for other keywords.
In conclusion if you have already registered your domain, that is great. Leave it how it is, do not form a new domain simply because you don't have keywords in it. If anything this can trigger duplicate content filters and get both sites punished. Just stick to you regular domain and submit articles and such to a bunch of directories with your keywords in them. This ensures you get the correct anchor text in your links, and these are all one way links that are not penalized by search engines. - 16069
About the Author:
Brent Sweet is an expert on SEO. Brent has recently started various sites to test methods recommended in training by the SEO "gurus." Brent has separated out the several functions to find out what methods work the best. If you would like to being promoting your site like his sites simply visit his site for Article Submissions. You can also follow his actions at hisSEO Blog
