Revamp current site or create new site?

dinneenp

Hi,
My current photography website is http://photoblog.ie
Lately I've realised that my favourite style is abstract. I'm thinking of revamping my current site, making it focused on abstract or abstract only with an aim to selling.

My other option is to create a new site, get a domain like abstractartphotography.ie or similar, build up the site and have abstract only as content.

Is one favourable over the other? I know SEO/ranking depends on content, traffic and not the domain but in the long run having a related domain looks better I think.

I know that a problem is that abstract is a very common term, whereas Galway photos is much more narrower. The term 'abstract art' gets over 13 times more searches than 'abstract photography' so that's why I'm thinking of a domain with abstractart in the url.

My current site doesn't have many visitors; about 2,000 a month.

If I buy an 'abstract' domain and cloak it- that's not recommended I hear.
Any other advice?
Thanks,
Pa.

PaulPinnacle

If you're doing it for your users and you prefer the branding of the related domain, grand. Do it.

If you're doing it for SEO reasons, which reading the post seems to be entirely the case, EMD (exact match domains) have fallen DRAMATICALLY in weighting when it comes to ranking factors and all predictions suggest they will continue to do so (though nobody can know for sure either way, so any comment for or against this is purely crystal ball gazing).

Related domains can have a nice benefit when it comes to click-through rates and memorability of the brand/domain, so can have positive indirect benefits, but that's only when everything else is equal. In this specific case, I'd personally (and this is 100% subjective, so do ignore completely if you wish) prefer the shorter domain of the two mentioned just as abstractartphotography.ie is too long, takes a while to decipher the individual words and is too generic and vague to serve as a 'brand' in the long term.

dgerryd

Have to agree with Paul's comment, abstractartphotography .ie just looks really crappy to me while EMD's do have their benefits they are usually better used for affiliate type review sites not for a real business and branding project. While EMD's get bad press and that online "abstractartphotography.ie" is going to rank for the keywords abstract art photography that bit quicker than a domain that doesn't have the keywords in it but like I said and Paul stated for branding purposes I wouldn't advise it personally.

A better option would be to buy an already used domain "for SEO benefits" which has been dropped by the owner for whatever reason, the reason being is that domain if you find a good one will already have links and good trust and citation flow already attached to it which you could take advantage of for SEO purposes there is no law against doing this and it works great.

zimmerseo

My suggestion would be to register a new domain with a shorter url then the one you suggest, like 'abstractphotography.ie'. I think it's a good idea to use a domain that reflects what you actually do.

Don't worry about exact match domains. It's a silly rumour that was in circulation for a while spread by people who read to much and understand too little.

If you include additional words you want to rank for within your title, description etc..thats fine.

Your site is quite specific in that it's about photography, not art which are two very different things. Yes it might have a bigger search volume but whats the point in chasing traffic that actually has no interest in abstract photography?

Having art in the URL is a bit misleading to potential visitors and a high bounce rate for those terms will affect your ranking, regardless of any SEO you do.

When you create you new domain, make sure you do a redirect to the new site from the old one. Here's a useful link to help you out. www dot moz.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains

Mrs OBumble

Why .ie ? Are you really only targeting Irish customers?

dinneenp

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Why .ie ? Are you really only targeting Irish customers?

All the combinations of 'abstract...art...photography/photo.com' seemed to be taken.

Mrs OBumble

dinneenp wrote: »

All the combinations of 'abstract...art...photography/photo.com' seemed to be taken.

Even .co.uk would have a larger target market than .ie

dinneenp

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Even .co.uk would have a larger target market than .ie

Thanks.
A few questions-
1. Is a .info domain any good?
2. I guess abstractfoto.com isn't worth going with?
3. photosabstract.com is available but is it something that people won't remember and will it rank as the words are in the 'wrong' order?

Thanks in advance,
Pa.

PaulPinnacle

dinneenp wrote: »

1. Is a .info domain any good?

From a search engine point of view the TLD (top level domain, the bit after the 'dot' at the end of the name) doesn't matter. .info is the same as .net is the same as .com.

The only differences are where you have country code TLDs (ccTLDs as opposed to gTLDs or generic top level domains) which are automatically targetted to a specific location. A .ie will always be geotargeted to Ireland, a .co.uk will always be geotargeted to the UK. A .ie can still rank in the UK, it just doesn't receive a boost in rankings that a .co.uk would and might get filtered for some search intent queries where the search engines think local sites are a better solution. With a gTLD you can target your domain (and individually target individual directories to different targets), with a ccTLD you lose the options of targetting but can (in some cases) earn increased trust and recognition of being a local provider (.ie carries a lot of trust, due mainly to the hoops you have to jump through with the IEDR to get the domain).

What are you hoping to actually do with the site (other than ranking with it :P)? Is it to generate sales of prints/art? Which countries will you be shipping to? What's your target market?

Depending on the answers to those questions, using a gTLD (.com, .net, .info, .me, .co, .io, .irish, etc) might be greatly preferable to using a ccTLD (.ie, .co.uk, etc).

As for "which gTLD", that's not a technical question really and far more a psychological one. Search engines don't care, but users will form an opinion on a site from the limited information available to them in a SERP (search engine results page). One of those things is the TLD of the site. Depending on your target market, this could be a negligible difference between various TLDs or it could be a significant one. In a similar way that using a longer (and slightly spammy sounding) name would have a negative impact on user behaviour. The change in user behaviour here will lead to changes in the positive ranking factors search engines do care about, so while it isn't a direct result a change in TLD can lead to changes in rankings indirectly by changing user behaviour.

You do have some of the new TLDs, like .photo itself, that opens up a whole world of potential there.

dinneenp wrote: »

2. I guess abstractfoto.com isn't worth going with?

It'd suffer from the same issue as any dash "-" domain does. How do you share the URL with someone?

"It's abstract photo dot com... but it's not photo, it's foto" just becomes messy. Descriptive is nice, when it comes at the cost of clarity and causes more confusion, it does more harm than good. I personally wouldn't be a fan of that one, but if you ask 100 people you'll get 100 different answers on subjective questions like that.

dinneenp wrote: »

3. photosabstract.com is available but is it something that people won't remember and will it rank as the words are in the 'wrong' order?

Any domain can rank for any keyword regardless of the domain name. EMDs help, a little, but aren't going to get you instant rankings and seriously aren't worth the time or energy you're investing into focusing on them. It's nice to have when it makes sense, it's a nice brand, it's descriptive and it's of benefit to your users, it isn't something you need to rank.

Find a name you like, figure out what you want to achieve with it, look at technical issues around targeting of TLDs depending on who you're trying to reach and leave your fascination for EMDs behind you. The vast majority of names you've thrown out in the thread I'd instantly view with scepticism as another spammy EMD out to try and pull a fast one. EMDs were of great value to spammy sites operating under burn and churn get rankings fast, earn $s fast and getting shut down fast, but shouldn't be the focus for you.

Having a keyword in the name would still help slightly, even if it's out of order. The help it would provide you in rankings wouldn't be worth the time you've invested here on this thread asking about it. Put the effort into providing a genuinely valuable site, providing a UX that's better than any of the competition, providing an experience that people will instantly want to share with others and emotional triggers that have users longing to return to your site. Achieve those things and you'll rank just fine, regardless of what domain or branding you choose.

dinneenp

Hi paulpinnacle
Thanks for the detailed reply. My aim is to (try to) sell photos and make some money from it.

I think I like to keep my current site as u post Galway related photos and more there too. With my new site I can focus on purely abstract and try to use promotions, offers, social media etc. to try to get up the ranking and traffic & potential buyers to the site too.
Cheers,
Pa

PaulPinnacle

Bit of an aside:
Plenty of room in the market for digital sales too. Striking imagery is hard to find and yet makes a major difference to the look/feel of a website and performance of a marketing campaign. It's hard to compete with the large mass volume suppliers in terms of costs (so many free providers you can't possibly hope to) but you can provide unique and different options that stand out from the 'normal' stock style stuff. Potentially opens up a (slight) new revenue stream for high-quality digital images, without the overheads of having to print/package/ship hard copies, for a little bit of tweaking to your purchase options.

If I were in your shoes and on the information you shared to date I'd probably be looking at building the site on a .photo gTLD (abstract.irish is also available, which would work too). It gives you the flexibility of geographical targeting, the ability to switch that targeting, target different content at different markets and as it's a 'new' TLD you'll have a bit more flexibility on what names are available. The fact that you have the "photo" (or abstract if you went .irish) contained in the name makes it descriptive enough for users to be beneficial without ever being an EMD.

You'll gain far more though focusing on the UX stuff. Just glancing at the site there I couldn't add a photo I was viewing in the gallery into my cart to buy, I had to go to the shop area and find the image from scratch. Resolving a hurdle like this would make a big difference to your conversion rates, would lead to far more sales and ultimately better rankings too as users would be happier on your site and more willing to share it and link to it as a result.

Do let us know what you ultimately decide on and be sure to share the new site with us once it's up and running. Look forward to seeing it.

tricky D

I would suggest checking out a few other tactics before trying domain name stuff which would be well down the priority list. There are loads of existing issues which domain names will not make a dent in and which should be sorted before any redesign (which can just carry the issues over and possibly add more - a redesign is no magic wand).

You could try to get some text content onto the homepage. There's very little SEO juice on it currently.

The photos in the galleries have no captions for the photos and I can't see the alt attributes being used for gallery images/thumbnails. That's a big SEO opportunity missed imho.

You could add og meta tags for more social media citation control.

A good boost should also be available if you integrate Google+ and Google My Business (Local) with your site. Done properly this can get your site into the 7-pack.

Also look at your backlinks and their anchor text and do more SEO checks your site as there are issues which if solved should give you a good boost.

dinneenp

tricky D wrote: »

I would suggest checking out a few other tactics before trying domain name stuff which would be well down the priority list. There are loads of existing issues which domain names will not make a dent in and which should be sorted before any redesign (which can just carry the issues over and possibly add more - a redesign is no magic wand).

You could try to get some text content onto the homepage. There's very little SEO juice on it currently.

The photos in the galleries have no captions for the photos and I can't see the alt attributes being used for gallery images/thumbnails. That's a big SEO opportunity missed imho.

You could add og meta tags for more social media citation control.

A good boost should also be available if you integrate Google+ and Google My Business (Local) with your site. Done properly this can get your site into the 7-pack.

Also look at your backlinks and their anchor text and do more SEO checks your site as there are issues which if solved should give you a good boost.

Thanks, I'll look into those tips.
I've wondered before about fullscreen homepage- it looks great (not on mobile) but it has to suffer seo-wise as there's no text there. I had a text field on the left-hand side with a small intro but removed it to give the fullscreen more impact.
So are fullscreen pages nice looking but awful for seo and is there anything that can be done to improve it?
Is best suggestion to not use fullscreen?
cheers.