Importance of Domain Name

Sorry if this has been discussed recently, but I am trying to gauge how important the domain name is to SEO?

I sell real estate analysis software, so how much better would the domain "real-estate-analysis" serve me rather than something less relevant, keeping the content of the website the same?

I am trying to decide whether to migrate my whole site, so this is very important for me to figure out. Thanks.

It's important, but much more important is selecting a name that is brandable. The hypehated domain would be difficult to remember/reference for those who found your product worth promoting and the benefit can be overcome with a few decent links.

EDIT: I wouldn't consider it if you have an existing site that is indexed, has a few links and the domain is at least as brandable.

Foghorn, Thanks for your reply. That's what I am debating. My website currently is only 2 months old and so far is barely indexed in the search engines. The current domain name of my website is the name of my software, which is brandable.
That being said, most of my sales are 1-off sales that will come from 1) organic search engine searches and 2)Adwords.

Migrating the site and the links would be easy, but "real-estate-analysis", despite having great keywords in the name, would be very similar to about 10 other websites out there, so it'd be hard to differentiate myself.

Is it better to have keywords or have a unique domain?

I had a similar issue. Instead of moving my site to the new domain I stuck with the original and still bought the domain with my keywords in. I then built a separate info site on this domain with all the links going to my original site.

Domain name is important only in that, if possible, keep it short, memorable and brandable. If your name will be similar to all of your competitors... don't use it. In software product differentiation is key; to include the name.

Bingoblogger,

That's an interesting idea. I, as well, already own the keyword-rich domain...

Did this strategy work for you? Isn't it double duty, though, to effective be promoting/linking 2 sites? I'd love to hear more about the pros/cons of your experience. Thanks,

Daniil.

There are some keywords that are totally owned in the search engines by domain names that contain the keyword so I suppose they are important

But I wouldn't break sweat because I cannot get a domain name that contains my keyword

domain names are very important becuase its like your identity on the web. just make sure that its related to your niche and easy to remember so it'll be productive as you will be expecting.

A keyword rich domain will go a long way in your rankings, especially recently. I've noticed this quite a bit in the last few months for a lot of my clients. My niche that I'm competing for is held by a person with only 20 backlinks and the keyword as his domain name. Everyone below has hundreds of backlinks. Now this still will be a bit keyword dependent, but imho I think Google is playing around with the weight it carries.

Simply not true, if it were that simple everyone would be ranking number one wouldn't they.

Whilst using your keyword phrase in your domain probably can't hurt, it will add relevance after all, there are many more factors that Google will use to judge the relevance of your page. I think that it's hardly a factor at all.

Keywords in domain name don't have a lot of SEO value, however, they do have value in encouraging searchers to click on your listing. All search engines highlight the keywords in your url's and experienced search engine users can easily spot them.

I wouldn't go with domain names with too many "-". They look spammy. Worse, it is impossible for people to remember them.