SEO is like a game of chess, where every move you make will come with its set of pros and cons. Though it may seem like you have taken the right steps towards ranking high on a SERP, there are further aspects to consider what might be hampering your rankings on search engines, or about how to improve SEO. The domain age, domain length, and structure, time when the domain is renewed, all are taken into consideration by search engines. Though these aspects may seem to have a minimal effect on the ranking, they are important and should be taken into consideration.
Domain Age
As the name suggests, this refers to the length of time that a domain has existed, by taking into consideration the age of a website. The duration of how long the domain has been registered and indexed by Google is one of the ranking factors. Older the page, the more credibility it receives. Although this does not last a long time, the point is that Google will take some amount of time before completely trusting a brand new domain over an existing one.
Date of Expiration
If you renew your domain one year at a time or only when it is about to expire, it communicates in a manner to Google that the site is not a priority. This kind of information could potentially weaken rankings and is not advisable.
Always register your domain for a number of years at once, or at least a good distance from the expiration date (ie., within 12-24 months from the expiration). It indicates to search engines that you are committed to sustaining the site activity and development for a substantial amount of time.
Domain Length & Structure
Short domain names and URLs are preferable over longer ones, both for usability and SEO purposes. As an example, it would be more advantageous to have the domain www.creometric.com as opposed to www.creometric-marketingagency.com.
Try to keep your domain name as specific to your main keyword as possible. For example, if a website is about Kitchenware, it would be best to have the domain www.kitchenware.com. This would benefit the site in not one but three ways.
First, the domain name would be imprinted in the minds of your visitors who would like to come back. Second, your website would enjoy a decent amount of type-in traffic. Third, when linking to the website, having an exact keyword in the link text and URL would help a lot.
Although an exact keyword match domain used to be a significant factor in rankings; it only offers indirect ranking benefits in today’s world of SEO.
Remember when focusing on the structure of your website, the value within a site should be based on incoming links and content. URLs do play a role, but the strength of links and content on your site will be what drives the potential for possibly ranking higher on search engines.
