A lot of times I shiver looking at some domain names people choose.
The ones I would never remember if I was to look up the site again.
Domain names are IMO the most important factor aside from the quality of your site and your products and services.
Domain name can make a difference when a potentially interested buyer shops thru sites and comes back 2 months later ready to make a purchase.
Domain names which are brandable will have the advantage of getting their sites seen again and again due to people’s lack of patience and memory lapse.
My recommendation is to look for something short. Something that can be a made up word, but it needs to have a ring to it.
You can’t just register your business name, add some keywords and wind up with something 25 characters long and expect people to not mess it up when trying to access your site again.
Do keywords in domain names help you with SEO?
Yes and No.
When Google visits your site, extra weight is given to what is in your copyright info. If you only use your made up name or a company name without keywords, you will not get a benefit. You can easily change that by having it say

Copyright 2007 Ticoville.com - Costa Rica Travel

and still benefit.
The benefit you get from having a keyword domain name is that when people link to you, they often tend to link to your site with the official name as the anchor text.
Brand yourself as more than just your domain name, but do use it since it needs to be repeated in order to get more people to know about you.
Example:
506 Properties Costa Rica.
Few people know that 506 is Costa Rica’s area code, but those interested in Costa Rica normally do, especially once they ask “what does 506 stand for”?

Having a number in a domain name (in the beginning) does help, but I only recommend using numbers when you can integrate them in the name.
If you don’t know where to find some good expired domain names, try Findeteer.
If you know of a better one, feel free to comment on this blog and let me know.

Mike

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