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I have recently bought an exact match.net for a keyword with no hyphens (on the fence about hyphens, read so many different views on here).

From looking around it seems that not all solicited links that I am interested in use anchor text, but more significantly exact match domain would be like automatic anchor text when anyone from the general population posts a link to your site.

I sell print books and am thinking of keeping the non-keyword domain in them so they are easy to say and type, while using the exact match domain for everything else online which the non-keyword domain would 301 redirect to.  I don't do any programming and will use cPanel on my webhost to do the 301 redirect, I already have one 301 to go to the www subdomain so that would make two 301's.

This might sound quite straight forward to many here but it's fairly new to me and I've not seen cPanel mentioned here yet, so was wondering if I am going about it the right way.

Sorry to hear that. I guess search engines can only figure out quality to a certain extent? One thing I intent to do in the future is enquire about advertising on sites found on page 1 results for high competition keywords and other keywords that I am not SEOing.

I read somewhere (on here I think) that hyphens in domains are OK so long as not too many.  It appears the hyphenated variants of your first not available domain are taken for the good tdl's but you might have some more scope with hyphens otherwise.

Also shouldn't "Personal" have only 1 letter "n"?

Great I look forward to posting it when finished, thanks guys.

I don't work in SEO and I'm not an expert so I grant you don't need to take me as one in what I say.  I want to participate here, hopefully won't embarras myself!  Don't know how much you'd want to derail from your already established words but I notice you have no keywords of  "used (insert variant of car)" which would be more specific hence closer to purchase intention?

...such as "used BMW" which for google USA gets a local exact match of 9,900 and global exact of 27,000 or "used audi" 4,400 LEM and 18,100 GEM.  "BMW" is 550,000 LEM and 4,090,000 GEM but 84% competative and not as specific to what you do whereas "used BMW" is 54% competative, more specific and closer to purchase intention.

"used cars" and their makes such as "mercedes" are two terms that don't seem to be brought together.  Might you be capturing market of people not looking specifically for a used mercedes?

I have noticed that sometimes posters will talk about a site without mentioning what it is.  I assume this is because it one of their clients so there is confidentiality, is there any other reason I should be aware of? its just that as I am new I am usually cautious and am considering posting my own site and mentioning all my keywords to ask for people’s verdict for my on-page SEO.  Still working on it, will be ready soon, thought I would ask in advance.

Regards,

Maybe another factor is how if other people complementarily link to your site without you knowing they aren't necessarily thinking about your SEO, so an exact match provides automatic anchor text?

The more advanced technology and logistics etc. becomes the further away human accountabilty becomes.  I think thats a major challenge in the modern day in general.

Thanks for your input.  I can see SEO really is an ongoing thing that you finetune.

Unfortunately I don't think I can track conversions as I don't sell direct, I can get as far as "prospect" (i.e. when someone clicks through to a retailer where my book can be bought).  I can't compete with Amazon and other retailers for their free delivery and worldwide reach, so I link to retailers who buy them wholesale from me and they sell my products.

I'm new to this so I don't have any real data. If at best I can rely on "prospect" I think I will calculate my costs for minimum 1% conversion on all marketing on the assumption that all are from within prospects %, and work my way up from there.  I have already sold 100 copies with pracitally no marketing so that's a good sign I guess.

Have yet to sort out webmaster tools as I thought it would be best to do my on page first.

Good point about profit vs conversion rate, I have a losing BingYahoo! PPC campaign at the moment (probably downsizing or closing down soon) and have thought it would be better if I sold Motorbikes and Mopeds or maybe Ferarris and Yatchs rather than books on PPC !

If local SEO tends to go hand in hand with small business then not so bad I guess?  Even though SEO is "free" and democratic so to speak, by the same principals maybe it's "undemocratic" if it's getting one of the few places on the 1st page of search engines that counts.  That in itself doesn't guarantee a business is the one with the most to offer the customer.  Previously it would have been more "equal" so to speak with paid advertising and the like.

Perhaps social media will play an increasingly more important role, and maybe that would free SEO.  By that I mean I am not on any social sites or have any interest in them other than for business, so as a customer and others like me would need to be reached in other ways.  An old fashioned non-social network based search engine for boring serious people like me.  9 / 10 of my searches are for information.

By the way what do you consider a good Global Exact Match for a key word?

I'm new to this so I might be off the mark but when I look for directories for SEO I will also consider the directory itself as a source of traffic, unless I'm mistaken and most of them are just "SERP machines", which I suppose isn't so bad becuase the good ones with standards are like Search Engines outsourcing for humans examining and verifying sites at 0 cost?

The following article implies that 2,400 isn’t bad……Quote from second to last paragraph of #2: “The real problem comes when you choose to target a keyword like 'ladies leather handbags' which has a broad match search volume of 2,400 but an exact match search volume of only 260”

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-keyword-research-mistakes-you-might-be-making

I like to keep mine under 50% competitive.  For one site which is in high competition market (as far I can see) has SEO irrelevant brand name domain, a primary key word at 51% with 2900 Global EM for page name with a secondary keyword at 44% and 590 GEM.

Another site with primary domain and keyword at 50% and 1000 GEM with other keywords between 40% and 50% and GEM’s of 1300 (also a page title), 1900 (also page title), 1000 (also a page title), 2400, 5400, 14800 (niche I might work on later), 1000, 1900, 4400, 3600, 5400, 1600, 3600 (also a page title), 1300, 1000, 2900, 1300.

SEO won’t be my only approach but within my competitive capability I think that’s the best I can get.

So, wondering what your thoughts where on a good Global Exact Match?

Thanks for your reply.  I'll put in a few relevant ones (3) without too much thought, can't do any harm.

I'm fairly new to SEO and I have been reading a lot on here and the SEOmoz guides over the last few days, finding it very interesting.

I am wondering about page keywords, I read that the engines no longer use them.  In this thread they say they still use them because of directories.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/why-i-still-use-meta-keywords#new-comment

So I was wondering, because directories are always smaller scale than search engines would keywords that are normally high competition have more clout in them? If so then using them could be misleading to competition if they think they are the actual keywords?  or might this contradict between your actual chosen keywords in the directories backlink anchor text or something?

I think adding images is a good one, as a glossary is load of text, adding pics would make it more presentational.  It could double up as a reciprocal link section if you link to other sites relevant to the terms, as many sites as you like for each term.

Sounds an interesting idea, one of my sites sells educational products so I could do the same.  I'd be interested to know more too, could this be punishable by search engines if done incorrectly?