I have a local site that has been live for about 3 months and being built out completely whitehat (which as everyone knows takes forever to rank, especially on a budget). After working on it day in and day out, I've noticed I might be leaving money on the table by only focusing only on the local market and now I feel the need to go after the larger piece of the pie...national. There are no competitors online in this niche. It's one of the few 'mom n pop' industries left and I feel it's ripe for a roll-up...electronically. Myself and a family member have been involved in the industry for many years and have all the connections in place to expand.
So with this in mind, I'm starting another new site. I completely understand the ramifications of starting 2 new sites at the same time and not focusing one, but with both of them being in the same exact niche, I won't be completely doubling my workload. I've been looking for an expired domain relentlessly for the last 2 months, but because of the small niche it's proven to be impossible. I've been hitting up several different platforms daily (it can be fucking addicting, but I'm not finding any winners that meet the metrics). Not just expired domains but also 'for sale' domains, and the 'for sale' domains are in the multi-thousands (the niche is small but extremely profitable).
I've reserved 2 separate domains. One is short with a brandable name with 9 letters while the other is almost an EMD but is 28 freaking letters long and no chance for branding. While I know the length has a small amount of ranking criteria, I know EMDs still have a little bit of ranking as well, although slowly losing that edge.
Here's my question, if you were going to start a new site (aged domain not an option), would you go after the long name for short term benefits, or go after the non EMD and wait out the time it will take to rank it with great content? The site is being built out in a tight silo design (which I feel will improve rankings with fewer backlinks). After writing out this post and rereading it, I think I know the answer (short and brandable), but I'd like to hear other opinions from those that know better than I. Of the many forums I'm a member of, this is the only one I've been coming to daily for researched info.
So with this in mind, I'm starting another new site. I completely understand the ramifications of starting 2 new sites at the same time and not focusing one, but with both of them being in the same exact niche, I won't be completely doubling my workload. I've been looking for an expired domain relentlessly for the last 2 months, but because of the small niche it's proven to be impossible. I've been hitting up several different platforms daily (it can be fucking addicting, but I'm not finding any winners that meet the metrics). Not just expired domains but also 'for sale' domains, and the 'for sale' domains are in the multi-thousands (the niche is small but extremely profitable).
I've reserved 2 separate domains. One is short with a brandable name with 9 letters while the other is almost an EMD but is 28 freaking letters long and no chance for branding. While I know the length has a small amount of ranking criteria, I know EMDs still have a little bit of ranking as well, although slowly losing that edge.
Here's my question, if you were going to start a new site (aged domain not an option), would you go after the long name for short term benefits, or go after the non EMD and wait out the time it will take to rank it with great content? The site is being built out in a tight silo design (which I feel will improve rankings with fewer backlinks). After writing out this post and rereading it, I think I know the answer (short and brandable), but I'd like to hear other opinions from those that know better than I. Of the many forums I'm a member of, this is the only one I've been coming to daily for researched info.
