Can't get my preferred URL, how much does it matter?

[isaac663]

Hi guys.

I'm building a new site at the moment - seen a solid SEO opportunity for my work.  I'm a producer engineer, specialising in mixing and mastering, so i'm creating a site for online mixing services.

After a bit of keyword research I decided that "online mixing" was the best, most relevant and high volume term to go for.  Ideally i'd like my home page to be www.onlinemixing.com (or something similar) but alas! It's been taken, as well as all the variations (like switching words, hypens etc)

How much does this matter form an SEO point of view?

E.g - For the search term "online mixing" would - www.onlinemixing-signalchain.co.uk  be much worse than -www.onlinemixing.co.uk?   Or am I sweating the small stuff?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Isaac.

[Andy-Halliday]

Hi

From an SEO point of view, Google reduce the important of keyword in the URL so having the keyword in the URL doesn't have as much of a factor as it once did. Again a lot of research and even Matt Cutts has confirmed its not as high as ranking factor as it once was.

I would never ever put a hyphen in the URL, there has been many tests show it does impact rankings (might have once been a whiteboard friday), but it not there have been multiple experiments, all showing that hypthen in the domain name is bad.

This is a must read, its a bit old (2007), but its very relevant http://moz.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name

Hope all this is useful

[masdigitalmedia]

Agreed with the the last submission.  The largest challenge for you to gain traction in rankings will be the age of the domain when compared to long-established businesses because of the trust factor.

http://searchengineland.com/ranking-the-seo-ranking-factors-10890

Best of Luck.

[isaac663]

Thanks so much guys, really helpful.

Will a 301 pass this "age trust", or any other trust factors?   I'm moving over from a long establish domain,  about 4 years old.  It's a flash site though, so i want to convert to something more SEO friendly.  Also how long does it take to gain trust?

Got some high quality backlinks (only about 20 but very relevant).  The 301 will help pass the "link juice" right?

Cheers.

Isaac.