Killer keywords and domain

Not too long ago, wrote a post about the importance of selecting a strong domain name and a few tips to help you come up with good domain names. I recently came across a great example of how much added value having keywords in your URL can bring to your SEO efforts.
I have a friend that registered the domain name coldplaymusic.net. The .com was already bought and was parked by some domainer, so he settled for the .net. If you do a search for “Coldplay music” you will find that coldplaymusic.net is in the second page of results. This is the shocking part… The domain name was purchased about a month ago. There have been no links built to this site, and there is not a lot of content. Even with these aspects working against its rankings, the site has still managed to make it on the second page for a search with a volume of over 200 thousand searches each month.
The content on the site has been optimized, so I can’t give all the credit to the domain. However, it does suggest the importance of having keywords in your domain. Because having keywords in a domain has helped web sites show up for in particular keywords, some domains become quite valuable. Some of you might remember that the domain Pizza.com sold last year for over two million dollars. The previous owner purchased it fourteen years ago for twenty dollars. Now that is what I call a good ROI.
As with everything, you need to be moderate in how you place keywords in your domain. You are limited to 63 characters or less in your domain (this does not include the .com, .net, or other country codes). Also, you should remember that if you have a domain like cheapviagragamblingpornreplicawatchesandmoneymakingschemes.com it will definitely look like spam to the search engines. Keep an eye out for my next post that will provide other tips to making your domain work for you.