Getting Domain Name Ideas from Google Analytics
One of the many ways I research domain names is the data that is generated from my websites Google Analytics stats.
If you do not use it or have not heard about it then welcome back from Mars as it is a fantastic and FREE analytic tool that every website owner should use.
I like to look at the traffic stats and see which keyword phrases are being used the most to bring in traffic to my sites and it can often be phrases that you may not have thought about. Then I will check that phrase and see if it is available to register as a .com or the equivalent ccTLD for the market that your site is targeting.
Here is an example of what I am talking about -
My wife has had a site for her Career Consulting business for the past 4 years called Career Wisdom (www.careerwisdom.com.au) One night about 9 months ago I was looking over the analytics stats to see which keywords / phrases were bringing in the most traffic.
The number one phrase that brought in the most traffic was (and still is) “career quotes” which is not of any great targeted value to Lois for her consulting as she mainly deals with clients in Australia. The domain name www.careerquotes.com was taken so I did not bother with any other extensions and seeing as she is number one or two most of the time in google we are still getting lots of traffic (just not sure what to do with it at this point, any ideas are welcome 
)
But the next highest keyword phrase that was bringing in great traffic was “career advice” so I checked the availability of the .com & the .com.au. The .com was taken but to my surprise the .com.au was available. It was 2 am by this stage and I checked the whois 3 times in different places and sure enough it was available. Excellent!!
As it turns out it had been registered for 6 years by someone who let it expire for whatever reason so I snapped it up as quickly as I could fill in my reg details at my registra.
Now www.careeradvice.com.au brings in a very decent amount of type-in traffic every month to www.careerwisdom.com.au and is going to be developed in 2009 as its own website seeing it is one of the top searched on phrases in the career industry in Australia.
I have done this with many other websites such as my www.waterpurifiers.in website and registered www.homewaterpurifiers.co.in & www.homewaterpurifiers.in as well which is one of the higher searched on phrases for that industry in India. You get what I am on about now I am sure.
My point is that if I had not checked my analytics stats I would never have found that www.careeradvice.com.au was available and also many of the other domains that now bring in type-in traffic to my other sites.
You can get similar stats from your hosting plans (such as Host Gator Web Hosting) using stat counters such as AW Stats or Webalizer but I much prefer the detail and user interface that Google Analytics provides.
Regardless of the tool you use, start looking at your website stats you may be surprised at the keyword / phrases that bring in the most traffic to your site and you never know, they may be available to register as well.
Happy domain hunting
Jeff | Dec 13, 2008 | Reply
Interesting idea – thanks!
Jamie Parks | Dec 14, 2008 | Reply
I use statcounter.com’s “recent keyword activity” and have found a few available reg’s that way. It’s definitely an important metric to monitor.
Thanks for sharing Ed!
Singh | Dec 15, 2008 | Reply
I like the website on water purifiers.
bob | Dec 16, 2008 | Reply
thanks for the tip.
I was intrigued by your checking 3 sources for whois info on the website you secured. I always thought, perhaps naively, that if I got my domain registered by Godady or some other major registrar that I was safe. Should I routinely check 2 or 3 registrars for confirmation of the Whois before buying a domain? thanks, bob
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Hi Bob,
No there is usually no problem with a whois lookup with any of the major registra’s.
It was just the fact that I could not believe that the domain was available that I was triple checking that I was not making a mistake.
Hope that helps.
Ed Keay-Smith
Oz Domainer
PhilGus | Feb 2, 2009 | Reply
Is the following a correct statement?
1.The keywords in the domain name is just one of the factors in securing a decent SERP. Thus if the goal was only to secure increased traffic to http://www.careerwisdom.com.au then given that it was established it would have been better to build more pages on that site targeting the keywords “career advice”. 2.If the goal was to create a new, separate site then the registration makes sense.
3.A new standalone site careeradvice.com.au would not outrank careerwisdom.com.au for the keywords assuming that they had the same content volumes/type because careeradvice.com.au is an established high PR site
I am struggling to grasp these aspects of SEO and would welcome any comments!
edkeaysm | Feb 4, 2009 | Reply
Hi Phil,
Referring to your questions -
1. Very true the domain name is just one part of the SEO puzzle and many other things need to be addressed (way more than I have time to go over here) If you have not done so I recommend you visit http://www.seobook.com/ to learn more about SEO.
2. Yes the domain has always been destined to be its own site but will take some time for that and at the moment the traffic is being sent to careerwisdom.com.au
3. Not necessarily true, it is always possible that it could out perform careerwisdom.com.au as the content will of course be different and more highly focused on the “career advice” phrase and other long tail phrases related to it such as “career advice perth” or “career advice australia”
Hope that clears up your questions.
Cheers
Ed
PhilGus | Feb 4, 2009 | Reply
Ed,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. One thing that I have been puzzled by since starting domaining in March 07 is why people are so focused on niche sites when from an SEO perspective it could be better to build one big site.
For example, Rick Latona is selling HolidayDestinations.com for $6,500 so why don’t I buy that and build multiple GEO sites off the extension.
It is cheaper than buying a single GEO dot com, much cheaper when you consider the infinite destinations you can add to this brandable domain. And as each new GEO is added to HolidayDestinations.com it will get a page rank boost from the rest of the site, and have instant authority in the eyes of Google.
The only advantage I can think of to buying GEO dot coms is the type-in traffic, but I think that the benefits of a mega site such as HolidayDestinations.com would mean that as long as it had multiple high quality GEOs running off it, that would be more profitable than a collection of individual GEOs, and easier for SEO.
The only other thing I can think is that with all the work a GEO takes it is simply not practical to have deep multiple geos of a single extension without a mammoth budget.
But I can only assume that I am wrong because everyone scrambles to buy high priced single GEOs whilst a nice brandable like holidaydestinations sits at just $6,500?