The difficulties in finding the sweet spot keywords for business, for example, are multifarous.

Some keywords may be ambiguous or not specific enough, crossing over between different concepts, so that they words may attract the wrong kind of people … for the split second before they leave you site. Some keywords may attract lots of viewers who have no interest in buying anything related to your site or in giving you their email address.

But probably the most difficult problem is competition.

Most keywords have too many competing pages on the web for most of us to get noticed. All the good watering holes have already attracted the mass herd. Or too few people search for other keywords to make it worth our while to bother. Or we get the popular keyword phrase, but not in the popular order … or we miss one important word, as Market Samurai notes.

Of course, if there were only ten competing web pages for your keyword, but each of these ten pages were found on large, authoritative, well established sites with thousands of backlinks and pristine ranking … it could take years for your site to appear on the front page of a search. You could be virtually lost on the second page. A few iron clad competitors may be as hard to beat as a million moderate ones.

Of course, you may be the first to capitalize on a new, popular niche, but statistically speaking, that is a bit like winning the lottery.

A more probable road to success for the small business person is to find a less competitive sub-niche possibly related to a popular one, and longer and less competitive keywords possibly related to a popular niche. Either assume the low hanging fruit in the popular niches has been taken and reach for the higher fruit or find a little tree few have even noticed.

Would you like a list of proven niches to give you ideas? Check out
Proven Niche Markets, with which I am affiliated. This includes keywords for each niche. Or see a free list of business ideas for more.

Keywords for business are best when they qualify on four different parameters: relevance, traffic, competition, and “commerciality.” Or so notes Market Samurai.

The keywords one uses on one’s site and in one’s ads or backlinks and anchor texts should be relevant to one’s site and business goals.

The keywords should have sufficient traffic … but not too much competition for the given traffic (or one risks getting lost in the crowd). A lot of traffic alone is not a sufficient indicator of a useful keyword.

And the keywords should give some indication that the people using them have commercial intent. A percentage of the people using the keywords should buy something relevant to the keyword and your site. Or if your goal is lead capture, the keyword is best if an acceptable percentage of people doing a search of that keyword sign up. And so on.

I for one am enthusiastic about this tool. You can even keep a very useful version of the research tool free if you decide not to buy after the trial period. See Dojo for training videos.

1) Make the name irrelevant to the subject matter of the site or blog. If your subject matter is growing tomatoes in your garden, choose a name like “spaghettirecipes.com” or “farmfertilizer.org.”

That way, most of your site visitors will leave instantly and be disappointed.

Part and parcel of being irrelevant is avoiding keyword research. That way, choosing a good domain name will be like pinning the tail on the donkey when you are blindfolded … and in the wrong room … and usually, the wrong house.

2) Choose a name which is obscure. Either make it relevant to a niche which is too obscure to attract anyone (“bedtimestoriesfordustmites.com”) or looks like personal code (“xlc462quagmirez34.com”) so no one will remember it. The longer, the better.

3) Make your name relevant to a fad as the fad is waning. That way, your domain name will be desired for the shortest possible time frame. As someone said, “He who is married to the spirit of the age is soon divorced.”

4) Avoid “.net,” “.org,” and especially “.com” addresses. Prefer “.info,” especially if you want to avoid a professional appearance or be harder to find.

5) Use misspellings. That way people are more likely to miss you when typing in your domain name into a search engine. Unfortunately, this can backfire if the misspelling is funny or common. Be careful to misspell properly.

Prefer “o” and “0″ which leads to confusion between letter and number. Similarly, keep searchers guessing whether your domain name has Roman numerals (“ix,” “v,” and so on) or letters of the alphabet.

6) Prefer underscores, hyphens, and numbers in your domain name, especially if they are unnecessary or have nothing to do with your existing brand or business name. It adds to the difficulty people have with your domain name.

7) If possible, choose a name which is generic in a highly competitive niche. That way, no one will ever find you in the crowd. Nothing in the name will make you stand out. You will be camouflaged.

Of course, there is an exception: your domain name infringes on the copyright of some big fish. At least that way, you will invite a law suit.

But otherwise, we hope the above helps keep you in the dark and on the web.

Peter Rubel

P.S. NameCheap.com and GoDaddy.com are two places to get started with domain names. Check for domain name availability at WhoIs.net.

P.P.S. As a bonus, you could purchase an old domain name with lots of baggage–one with a history of spamming, porn–whatever works (or doesn’t). Just try to shake such a reputation! Find out about the baggage for yourself on archive.org.