Hi all,

I need to choose a domain name for my website, advertising my pet portraits.

Unfortunately alot of the possible names are taken.

Assuming that people will type in "pet portraits" when searching on search engines, if the domain name is pet-portraits (with an -)would it still show up in google?

Or is it better to make sure that the words petportraits are not broken up and instead maybe choose something like "quality-petportraits"?

Which would be better in tems of giving it a good ranking in google?

Thanks.

Assuming that people will type in "pet portraits" when searching on search engines, if the domain name is pet-portraits (with an -)would it still show up in google?

Yes it would. Most people do not like domain names with hyphen. But in your case that would be more then great.

You can get pet-portraits.mobi witch I would get as its what your looking for

Assuming that people will type in "pet portraits" when searching on search engines, if the domain name is pet-portraits (with an -)would it still show up in google?

No

Or is it better to make sure that the words petportraits are not broken up and instead maybe choose something like "quality-petportraits"?

Absolutely NOT!!

Which would be better in tems of giving it a good ranking in Google?

None of those, as the domain name is of little value for search engines.

Choose a business name then get a simple, memorable, easily typed hostname that can be branded to what you do.

You DO NOT need a "keyword rich" domain name for SEO, if anything it will likely be a hinderance in the future.

For example:
What is wrong with using your forum handle as a business name?

"Pet Portraits by Iotrez",
"Iotrez for Pet Portraits",
"Stunning Pet Portraits available at iotrez.com"
"When you think of Pet Portraits, think iotrez.com"

Get your marketing and branding right first! then think about search engines.

Originally Posted by Iotrez

Hi all,

I need to choose a domain name for my website, advertising my pet portraits.

Unfortunately alot of the possible names are taken.

Assuming that people will type in "pet portraits" when searching on search engines, if the domain name is pet-portraits (with an -)would it still show up in google?

Or is it better to make sure that the words petportraits are not broken up and instead maybe choose something like "quality-petportraits"?

Which would be better in tems of giving it a good ranking in google?

If you are concerned about having your site show up in search engines, I wouldn't be worried about the domain name. Search engines craw the “title, keywords and description meta tags” plus keywords on the page of your site.
Keywords for you - pet portraits, photos, pics, pitures, album etc… It sounds like what you do is localized so it’s a good idea to get your location in the meta tags too. I like the location to be in the title of my web sites. Example: Pet Portraits ÷ Smithvale New Jersey

Domain name is important as well as title tag description tag for the SEO. Seo is a complex of actions and choosing domain name is one of them

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

Domain name is important as well as title tag description tag for the SEO. Seo is a complex of actions and choosing domain name is one of them

No it isn't

Are you suggesting that Amazon should be we-sell-books-and-things.com? or Ebay should have gone with online-auctions.com, maybe Google should be best-search-engine.com etc etc

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

Domain name is important as well as title tag description tag for the SEO. Seo is a complex of actions and choosing domain name is one of them

Here is a page I built for a Recording Studio in New Jersey. The URL is at: http://www.recordme.com/annex.htm The domain name is recordme.com...
The URL above when doing a google search for: Audio Course, New Jersey
is on page ONE (1).
Search results: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Audio+Course%2C+New+Jersey&btnG=Google+Searc h
Look for: Recording School, Training, Classes, Audio Course, New Jersey / NJ ...
Take note that a google search may not be the same from state to state and may change position from day to day...

Hyphens are becoming more and more common. It will still show up on Google, so go for it!

Come up with a name that hasn't been taken. When someone says your name, there should be no question as to who the real one is.

Actually a hyphen is a pretty good option for you, although I do agree with chrishirst in that it seems more professional and appealing if you chose a company name and tried to concentrate on getting a domain name centering around that.

Some available as of now:

mycritterpics.com
petpicsgallery.com
gopetpics.com
getpetportraits.com

I think the use of the - sign is ok for most domains (obviously don't bother if you don't need it), only draw back is some people have problems when typing out the website address.

Originally Posted by alcozar

I think the use of the - sign is ok for most domains (obviously don't bother if you don't need it), only draw back is some people have problems when typing out the website address.

That's the main issue with dashes. It will be harder to type in and for people to remember.