Phrase Match Domains

By Jason Hawkins on June 30, 2013
  • Google Webmaster Tools

Can you rank and brand new PMD for really competitive keywords in less than 3 months?

Yes. Well, if you know what you’re doing, it’s really not that difficult, there are many ways to do it. I thought I would share my most recent case study with everyone who follows my Blog to see if anyone else has experienced similar results. My goal was to build a site with a very keyword rich domain that is brand new and rank it without building any traditional back links. I only used “white hat” techniques that were in compliance with the search engine quality guidelines.

I am going to summarize things to keep things short and not so technical, for those of you that have technical questions, I will be happy to answer in the comments section below.

The history of The Miami SEO Company

After working for an SEO company that was over promising and under delivering I decided to take things into my own hands and start offering my experience and knowledge independently. I wanted to have a site that offered services in Miami, SEO primarily, but also Adwords management, web design etc. I bought the domain themiamiseocompany (dot) com and started working on a WordPress template with a friend of mine. The site is not the most beautiful thing in the world but it gets the job done, it started off as just a site that I wanted to rank for a couple of really competitive local terms like “Miami SEO Company” and other related terms.

After the design was finished, I personally wrote the content on each page of the site that to ensure it was unique and high quality. I made sure to keep everything clean, no borderline spam or keyword stuffing. I was very careful to not over optimize anything by not using any type of keyword stuffing in the content, meta info etc.I created as many social media accounts as possible on all of the major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus etc… One thing that I feel was helpful was getting all of my URL’s to include keywords for example “facebook.com/miamiseocompany”, or “twitter.com/miamiseofirm”.

Web 2.0’s Using Knowem’!

I also used a free tool called Know’em which allows you to search for available profile URL’s that you can use through a keyword search function. It provides you with a list of high quality sites that you can get a back link from through a keyword friendly URL. Here is a screen shot of the results when you search for profiles that you can use to create a URL that contains the keyword “Miami SEO company”.

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Social Media Updates and Audience Engagement

I maintained a steady flow up updates to my Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus profile that included links to relevant news articles or blog posts that I found interesting. I also updated my social media profiles as a way to engage my audience to share and read all of my blog posts. When ever I would create a new web 2.0 or update one of my third party blogs I would mention it on my social media profiles to hopefully get some likes or shares.

I updated the social media accounts regularly using hash tags and high quality links to relevant articles. I also made sure to include my money keywords in the description and titles of the social media profiles I created. I generally tried to use as much content as possible to keep it from looking “spammy” or created solely for the sake of manipulating search engines.

Blogging – The key to a successful SEO campaign.

While doing all of this I made sure to try and create a really informative blog post or two a week ranging from 1000-4000 words each. I included images, videos and really informative content that I felt a user would enjoy. Being that I am in the industry I knew exactly what to write about and I knew how to write it in a compelling way, providing a good user experience. The blog posts all included internal links to the home page with keyword based anchor text. I also included outbound links to sites that were relevant to the keyword being used. For example if mentioned Miami, I would make that a link to the Miami Dade Gov page. I would include a lot of links to the Quality guideline manuals to certain search engines and also a lot of good support sites.

I made sure to try and create a few really good third party blogs that I also updated regularly, many of them were on blogspot accounts or sites alike. I used really good content on these micro blogs/sites and made sure to include a link or two back to the most relevant page on my site using either a relevant keyword anchor text or a generic anchor text.

Google Analytics organic traffic report.

Date Range: April 1st, 2013 – June 26, 2013
analytics

Webmaster Tools Search Query Report.

Date Range: April 1st, 2013 – June 26, 2013
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Online Marketing Accomplishments

After about 3 months, I made it to the number one spot for each and every single one of my money keywords and many variations of those keywords. In total it currently ranks for 280 keywords. Some of which include:

  • SEO companies in Miami (position #1)
  • Miami SEO consultant (position #1)
  • Miami SEO company (position #1)
  • Best SEO company in Miami (position #1)
  • SEO firms in Miami (position #1)
  • SEO agency in Miami (position #1)
  • SEO company Miami (position #1)
  • Miami SEO Companies (position #1)
  • PPC Management Company Miami
  • PPC campaign manager Miami (position #1)
  • Excel and Adwords (position #3)

It ranks in the top 3 for many other terms that are similar, I know that this is not really conclusive, but I feel that exact match domains are extremely helpful and if you think like a search engine, and only do things to your website that you feel provide a good user experience, then you will be rewarded. I asked myself before doing anything, would Matt Cutts like to see this? Since then I have turned the site into a very informative place for people looking to learn more about SEO or looking for SEM services.



About The Author

Jason Hawkins
Jason Hawkins / http://www.themiamiseocompany.com

Jason Hawkins is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Miami SEO Company. He has over ten years of experience in search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and lead generation. His core responsibilities include identifying ways to increase value of services rendered, training staff on advanced SEO topics, and A/B testing internal processes to consistently improve client return on investment.