SEO - Keyword and domain query

[obliquegeek]

Hi all,

We have been building our site and have run into a bit of an issue that we didn't see coming and was hoping to get a little advice.

I've had to change the real name slightly but we been building our site for a while now, let's call it www.teapot-xchange.com. The 'xchange' part because 'exchange' was already taken (slowly buying these up as they become available). So everything to do with the site currently says 'xchange', content, links, twitter, facebook, backlinks, all marketing material etc.

The problem we have now we're getting ready to launch and do some serious SEO is that whenever we mention the site to anyone they instantly start searching for 'teapot exchange'. So I'm thinking we have a couple of options;

1, buy 'teapot-exchange' and set about changing everything - which is going to take a lot of time and delay the launch somewhat.
2, Stick with 'teapot-xchange' and optimize all website content for 'teapot-exchange', including Facebook etc and all future content.

Obviously no.2 would be much simpler and quicker, but would it be effective?

Or any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[watshelly]

I think it's OK for you to name your company or product "xchange", but when it comes to the "keyword" in SEO. You'd better use "exchange". As you mentioned above, people will just search "teapot exchange" rather than "teapot xchange". SEO means optimize the Pagerank of your website through the existing keywords, rather than calling people to search other keywords.

[seotrafficsearch]

teapot xchange sounds more funky to me and i would suggest that you go with it only if you think that you can build a brand out of it. You will have to do a lot of social media marketing and probably use PPC to build that brand. On the other hand if you use teapot exchange, Search engine marketing would do the job for you. So both are different strategies. You could also do SEO for teapot xchange and use teapot exchange as the anchor text. Hope this helps you.

[obliquegeek]

I think I'm going with option 2 for the time being. I think it will produce good better results in the short term, with a lot less work. Once the site is established I'll think about moving things towards 'xchange'.

Thanks

[amyfitness]

just some advice you should not decided what domains to buy with a bunch of strangers who can easily snatch it from you. I agree that it's important to have keywords in your domain so "exchange" is better than exchange unless you have a ton of money to throw in to branding.

[johnmr581]

I think it's OK for you to name your company or product "xchange", but when it comes to the "keyword" in SEO. You'd better use "exchange". As you mentioned above, people will just search "teapot exchange" rather than "teapot xchange". SEO means optimize the Pagerank of your website through the existing keywords, rather than calling people to search other keywords.

I agree with Watshelly. You should use 'exchange' more than "xchange"