I am making a buying a multiple domain names with the local area name and window cleaning in them so they come up first, but what do most people search for when they look on google to find a window cleaning?
Examples:
www. (Generic City) Window Cleaning.com
www. (Generic City) Window Cleaner.com
www. (Generic City) Window Washing.com
www. (Generic City) Window Cleaning Service.com
People will generally seek out CITY WINDOW CLEANING or WINDOW CLEANING CITY. (some areas use washing more than cleaning)
I don’t think they’d add WWW or .COM along with their search.
Having a domain name that matches a search term doesn’t guarantee first position. Though it could get you there if your competition isn’t too heavy.
No I do understand that people don’t search with www. .com but I was just using that as an example for my site. A
And the competition is relatively limited, most come up in the google locals ( 6 to be exact, dont have websites) But I think im going to go with www.LancasterPaWindowCleaning.com Is including the state a good idea?
There was some discussion about which is a better term - washing or cleaning. It all boils down to what is in common use in your area. Here people search using the term window cleaning but when dealing w/ siding, deck, or driveways cleaning they search the term power washing. Check the local competition to see which terms they are using.
You don’t even have to do that just use https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Much easier to see what people are searching in your area. 
If you want your domain name to effect search results, I believe you need to separate keywords in your domain name with a
(-).
example:GenericCity-Window-Cleaning.com
That’s not the case.
This is what I have been told.
Can google pick the keywords out of : GenericCityWindowCleaning.com ?
Or does the domain name even matter in search results? I believe this is what Seth was asking.
Yes and no.
From Googles own words:
“Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.”
Reference:URL structure - Webmaster Tools Help
Im not 100% sure so maybe I should have said " I don’t think that is the case" I tried to ask my web guy again and he never replys back. I remember asking about that and was told it didnt really help or make a difference.
If I understand right I think that google is saying If you must use (-) or () then they perfer you to use (-) because it would be more useful to them. I dont see them saying Its more usefull if you use () or (-).
Thanks
Hey Seth, Check this out it will help you find out what people are searching more of in your area. Just type in what you have above and it should tell you how many searches
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
You are correct, this DOES help to separate the words, however FAR more important than having your keywords in your URL is going to be your linking strategy.
to be on page 1, your going to need Links with proper anchor text…
meaning links like this:
<a href=“http://www.streakfreesd.com” target=“_blank”>North County Window Cleaning</a> (with your keywords as anchor text)
NOT links like this (if you can help it):
Wow. So your saying that city-windowcleaning.com is different to google then citywindowcleaning.com? Is it that way because it’s easier for the spiders to read it or what? Thanks Doug.
Seth, your are smart for thinking about getting your website to the front of Google, this is where people look for services nowadays, and it always blows my mind how many window cleaners don’t bother to take advantage of this WONDERFUL marketing tool.
If you can swing it, buy up ALL those URLS, they can be of help in the future. Most important is getting links though.
If you set up a link this:
Window Cleaning in Lancaster, PA }
Seth, your are smart for thinking about getting your website to the front of Google, this is where people look for services nowadays, and it always blows my mind how many window cleaners don’t bother to take advantage of this WONDERFUL marketing tool.
If you can swing it, buy up ALL those URLS, they can be of help in the future. Most important is getting links though.
If you set up a link this
Window Cleaning in Lancaster, PA Pressure Washing, Gutter Cleaning
this will help your rankings for both window cleaning and window washing since all of those words are in there? make sense? get creative, and you can come up with tons of variations that all work well.
Thanks, I found that last night.
Thanks Doug, I do understand the most important SEO are having a SEO friendly site and getting links.
Question for ya though. I was #15 in my local listing, and i did some editing of my files, changed some names around to more keywords including, changing file paths and image names. Since I did that im down to 41 on google. I’m assuming i now how to fight back again? and how can i avoid being bumped like that in the future when i feel i need to change some stuff around?
I’m not Doug but I’ll take a crack at explaining this.
Case scenario:
Johnny Appleseed wants a web site. So he registers “www.johnnyappleseed.com”
Now John Smith, who sells apple seeds wants a web site and registers the following domain name. “www.johnnysappleseeds.com”
Nothing wrong with either scenario. However, when people search for “Johnny’s apple seeds” they may get the web site “www.johnnyappleseed.com” as a top return which is not what they want and doesn’t benefit John Smith.
So as suggested by Google, “www.johnnys-apple-seeds.com” would be a better domain name for John Smith to choose from and should produce better/more accurate results and indexing.
In one instance “appleseed” is a last name while “apple seeds” are two words describing the subject of the web page/site.
Okay so before I go and buy a bunch more domains let me get this stright.
windowcleaning-louisville.com
Louisville-window-cleaning.com
Window-cleaning-louisville.com
Which ones? Thanks
I personally would go with either louisvillewindowcleaning.com or
Louisville-windowcleaning.com
I’ve heard of people having problems with Google to many hyphens in there URLS, but I’ve never heard of anyone having a problem because of a lack of hyphens.
plus, people could have a hard time remembering your URL with too many hyphens. I know that has nothing to do with SEO but its worth considering.
I do understand what you guys are talking about, but remember that you’re domain name alone means nothing, you can have the best domain name ever, but just that won’t take you straight to #1 position. Effective SEO is a combination of SEVERAL factors.
Yep.
