Some basic questions from an SEO noob

[silverjj]

Some background:
I am in the process of building an app for internet, apple market and android market. It's going to be a bit before that is completed and I have started researching Internet Marketing and SEO. Alot to take in.

What I was going to do, was to start up a new site (of an area of interest) with the thoughts of trying different things out and what I see works to relay over to the main site. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not a scammy scammer ... actually now want this "test" site to be a great content site that could go somewhere, but my main goal for it isn't monetization ... but a test bed of sorts.

That being said, as I've been reading/listening to different avenutes as it relates to this topic I have some confusion and was hoping someone more knowledgeable than I could help me with:
* Is there ANY reason now-a-days to have the main keyword you are going after in your domain name? I know with Google's update they targed the EMD's with crappy content. But if you had a site with relevent content AND the keyword in your domain would that be beneficial? Or is it just the fact that the weight has dropped and it's more about quality backlinks and site content quality? Just trying to figure out if it's WORTH trying to get a domain with the main keyword in it ... or if it's not really that important.
* When researching keywords and there are pages that are ranking top 2-3 ... does it matter that those are pages of a website (i.e. money.usnews.com/subd/cat/article.html) rather than a main page. I think I answered that question by reading through some posts on here. Thinking it doesn't matter ... each page is qualified individually and ranked based on content/backlink quality. But I would think that a site dedicated to that search term with good quality content all around would end up ranking better than a site that has just this single page referencing some top level data about that search term. I.e. Pretend savemoremoney.com was available and you were targeting the keyword save more money ... but the top site for that term had a PR 4 and was an authority site (overall) but for that keyword they just had a page for it giving some top level information. Would the site dedicated to that topic (call it savemoremoney.com end up eventually ranking higher because of overall breath of content ... or would it never compete because going against a PR5 site that is an overall authority on that Market even though they don't dive into the niche full force?

Sorry for the long questions. Know there's other stuff but those are the main two that are confusing/perplexing to me right now.

Thanks for any time you take in replying to this! It's much appreciated!

Lenny

[atkinssteve028]

1. Buying your domain name with your main keyword will be okay. I think that can help your site but of course the large part of your site having good search and rankings will be depending also on your content (HQ content) and backlinks (HQ backlinks).

2. Each page of your site will target specific terms and keywords which will need some link building tasks. You do not want to be found only through the main page I suppose. The reason my you create other posts and pages is for them to rank too and drive your website traffic.

[joshz]

That being said, as I've been reading/listening to different avenutes as it relates to this topic I have some confusion and was hoping someone more knowledgeable than I could help me with:
* Is there ANY reason now-a-days to have the main keyword you are going after in your domain name? I know with Google's update they targed the EMD's with crappy content. But if you had a site with relevent content AND the keyword in your domain would that be beneficial? Or is it just the fact that the weight has dropped and it's more about quality backlinks and site content quality? Just trying to figure out if it's WORTH trying to get a domain with the main keyword in it ... or if it's not really that important.

No. Branding > KID. Sure, you might get a small boost from KID; however, this is nothing that a decent link can offset. Your domain is your brand. That's priority number 1. SEO will follow.

* When researching keywords and there are pages that are ranking top 2-3 ... does it matter that those are pages of a website (i.e. money.usnews.com/subd/cat/article.html) rather than a main page. I think I answered that question by reading through some posts on here. Thinking it doesn't matter ... each page is qualified individually and ranked based on content/backlink quality. But I would think that a site dedicated to that search term with good quality content all around would end up ranking better than a site that has just this single page referencing some top level data about that search term. I.e. Pretend savemoremoney.com was available and you were targeting the keyword save more money ... but the top site for that term had a PR 4 and was an authority site (overall) but for that keyword they just had a page for it giving some top level information. Would the site dedicated to that topic (call it savemoremoney.com end up eventually ranking higher because of overall breath of content ... or would it never compete because going against a PR5 site that is an overall authority on that Market even though they don't dive into the niche full force?

Having a term link into an internal page is great and proper. Odds are, the internal page is more relevant and will create a lower bounce rate with higher conversions. Building links/keywords only to one page, eg homepage is long term SEO suicide. Google ranks pages on relevance. If the said page is more or less relevant than hopepage, said page would rank. You want long tail traffic to go to long tail URL's. You want it for UX. Why have a site about widget link to the homepage, then the widget details aren't even on that page. It would be more logical to link the widget anchor text to the domain.com/page-about-widgets.html

[JennifferGrey]

The content of your site should be on HIGH quality if you want it to boom. then generate traffic to it so it would have high PR