Keyword and URL

[JamesAMartin]

I have a client who has a popular name (like 'Joe Smith'). His blog URL has only his first name and the name of his company in it, like joe.company.com.

His blog doesn't rank well at all in the first 3-4 Google SERPs. I was thinking of advising him to change the URL of his blog to joesmith.company.com, and having his webmaster do 301 redirects from the old URL to the new one.

Do you think this is a good strategy, or would you recommend something else? I realize ranking isn't just about the URL, it's about links, etc. But I think making his URL more specific to his name could help.

Any advice greatly appreciated! Jim

[Autoschieber]

Hi Jim, if you are just starting / or Joe just produced a few content pages and didn't build up any incoming links you could change the name of the url and do a 301 to put more clarity for users looking for that name.

Next step will be to work hard, build good content & links.

A friend of mine has the same name as a famous football player but after 6 month he was able to outrank him. So be patient.

[Francisco_Meza]

James, I had to read your question twice. Your client has a subdomain like joe.company.com and you want to redirect to joesmith.company.com?

Don't waste your time. Build quality links and watch the rankings go up. If creating a subdomain had the effect of having an exact match boost from Google, all of us here on SEOmoz would have created spammy sites. SEOmoz will not rank for SEO Tools by creating a subdomain seotools.seomoz.org

[Autoschieber]

Maybe he has a company scheme for each employe to follow?

@james if your are building the subdomain only for seo / ranking reasons then Francisco is right, don't waste your time. maybe you go a little bit more into the details why you need a subdomain?

[JamesAMartin]

Thanks so much your helpful advice. I really appreciate it! Jim