I have one other question which I wasn't sure whether to post here or in the SEO section of music marketing, because I think it's relevant there too. In looking for domain names for my meditation website I ran across this:

http://introtomeditation.com/

The home page is specifically vedic meditation but they've chosen a more general URL, presumably for better SEO and it has paid off. They come up on the first page for searches on the keyword "meditation" despite the fact that what they actually offer is a specific subset of that keyword.

I'm wondering if I can do something similar for my websites. In the case of my meditation website, the URL would be general but the site would be the current PGZ site, converted to a membership site by changing the categories and creating a bigger opt-in. Basically, I like the look of my PGZ meditation site and would like it to become the membership site but not at the expense of SEO or subscriber ease of use. I'm wondering if the example above could be a workaround or whether there might be some other way to pull that off.

Also, could I get several urls all directed to the same pgz home page and would that work for SEO? Or is it better to stick with one url and support with articles on the site which include secondary and tertiary keywords.

This question applies to my music membership site too. Could I preserve the infrastructure of my site, convert it to a membership site and keep the landing page as it is but have two URL's? My name URL and one that's niche specific, with singer-songwriter in the title, for example?

I know I've had a firestorm of questions lately... thank you!!!!!

Julianna Raye said:

I have one other question which I wasn't sure whether to post here or in the SEO section of music marketing, because I think it's relevant there too. In looking for domain names for my meditation website I ran across this:

http://introtomeditation.com/

The home page is specifically vedic meditation but they've chosen a more general URL, presumably for better SEO and it has paid off. They come up on the first page for searches on the keyword "meditation" despite the fact that what they actually offer is a specific subset of that keyword.

I'm wondering if I can do something similar for my websites. In the case of my meditation website, the URL would be general but the site would be the current PGZ site, converted to a membership site by changing the categories and creating a bigger opt-in. Basically, I like the look of my PGZ meditation site and would like it to become the membership site but not at the expense of SEO or subscriber ease of use. I'm wondering if the example above could be a workaround or whether there might be some other way to pull that off.

Also, could I get several urls all directed to the same pgz home page and would that work for SEO? Or is it better to stick with one url and support with articles on the site which include secondary and tertiary keywords.

This question applies to my music membership site too. Could I preserve the infrastructure of my site, convert it to a membership site and keep the landing page as it is but have two URL's? My name URL and one that's niche specific, with singer-songwriter in the title, for example?

I know I've had a firestorm of questions lately… thank you!!!!!

Has it paid off? We don't know what the bounce rate is on that site – there could be people who click on it and then see that it's about a specific type of meditation that they're not interested in and leave immediately.

You can try something similar and see how it goes, my advice would be to try and work 'meditation' in at the start of the domain URL rather than the end. So instead of 'introtomeditation.com' I'd go with 'meditation101.com' or 'meditationconcepts.com' or something like that.

Having a generic domain name (ie. 'meditation' rather than 'guitarmeditation') is preferable if you're going to create an authority site on all things meditation. If you're going to create a micro site on – guitar meditation, then it would be best to have that in the url.

Buying multiple domain names won't necessarily help you for SEO unless they are already aged and have some kind of content on them and they are permanently redirected to your main site. If you just buy a few domains that are brand new without any content and direct them to your site they'll be essentially worthless for traffic or SEO purposes.

I'm not sure about all your questions about infrastructure. If you want to leave your site as is you can merely create another wordpress install on a new directory like introductiontomeditation.com/members and set it up however you want there without messing with the root site on introductiontomeditation.com. You could do the same thing with a squeeze page by having it (or a sales letter) on the root of the domain with your members area separate.

I'm sure John can also chime in on how he has the insider circle and music marketing manifesto membership sites setup for further ideas.

Hey John,

I guess I still don't understand keyword ranking. When I look at "to relax" for example, I see 68 million competing sites with that keyword phrase in their title, which sounds ridiculously competitive. However, the adwords rate is .83 cents as opposed to $1.14 for the  keyword "stress reduction." To relax has 56,000 searches a day whereas Stress Reduction has 1200 so To Relax looks like a higher searched, less monetized term to me which makes it appealing.

When I check out the SEOC on market samurai it looks comparatively good. I'm mainly looking at how much red is going on generally, how many back links the page and referring domains have and seeing whether any of those front page listings appear vulnerable/new enough to get knocked out, based on my limited understanding of this stuff.

Then, when I look at the front page of google, I don't see home pages of sites that feature to relax in their header and are focused on content directly related to relaxing, but rather I see back page articles on large sites, which are not necessarily a direct match. So looking at all those factors, "to relax" is appealing to me, in spite of the 68 million competing sites. It doesn't look like what those front page websites are selling is directly related to that keyword, whereas what I'm selling will be. 

However, I realize that what's logical to me likely has no resemblance to the search engine logarithm and I may be over-valuing certain research info (like the adwords rate) and undervaluing other research info (like the # of sites with the keyword in their title.) In your experience, is the # of competing pages with the keyword in their title the most important piece of research when determining how hard it will be to rank for a keyword? Looking at the logic I've described above, can you suggest a better way to assess keywords? Maybe I'm completely off base having chosen "to relax."

Many thanks!!

Julianna

ok got it. That's clear and straightforward... and I understand enough now to follow your advice! 🙂 Thanks John

ok ok after searching a bit more with those criterion, I have one final, final question:

"Meditation to relax" has about 40 searches a day and @ 100,000 sites use the keyword in their title. It also sounds like it makes sense, although insight meditation is more about reducing stress so it's not as precise as some other terms... but stress related urls were taken and that's a more competitive area, keyword wise, with no better organic search volume. So far so good for meditationtorelax.com

"Meditation why" has 46,000 searches a day and comes up in @ 40,000 in title searches. Even though it's one of those quirky, weird results types of terms, it appeals to me because a lot of people are curious and don't understand why they should bother meditating and that's a question my course will answer well and consistently. Also, the zen style I've practiced revolves around confounding questions, so it's kind of an inside play on my zen background which ties in nicely with pop go zen. For meditationwhy.com the title/header could be "Meditation... WHY?" kinda fun and entertaining! Maybe also a clever way to rank in more searches?

However, even though the term is exponentially more highly searched and only 40% the amount of in titles results, I realize it's one of those non-sensical terms you were talking about, so I'm not sure whether it's preferable to go with a search term like "mediation to relax" which makes more sense and reads better etc. 

Many thanks again for helping me clarify this crazy stuff!!! I'm probably over-thinking it but that's cause I don't yet fully understand it... getting there though, thanks to your help!

Julianna

argh! Not my day for this stuff!! So when you chose music marketing manifesto you were obviously just targeting "music marketing" so I don't need to look at statistics for the whole long tail phrase right? Just the part I want to match… and that needs to come at the front of the phrase. Like if I chose meditationtrainingonline.com I'd be targeting "meditation training" and online is just a descriptor. I'm not targeting the whole phrase, right?

Because what I'm running into is that every phrase I try to come up with for meditation either gets so specific it isn't searched or it's so broad, it has a URL that's already taken. Also, keeping meditation at the front of the phrase makes it awkward… so I can't search stuff like "learn how to meditate" (anyway it's taken). That's an organic keyword but it doesn't have meditation as the first word.

Is there any reading or video tutorials you would recommend on this? I am just hitting a total wall. I could come up with song titles all day long and I can't come up with one catchy, well searched keyword. WTF?

Awesome!! Thank you for that clarity and the tip about bulk domains. I'll give it a try! Thanks again, Julianna