Many people think that having keywords in your website’s URL address can be beneficial to Google rankings. It is “somewhat” true but not in a direct way. Here is what I mean.

Google does not look at your URL and tell it’s self … “wow, they got the URL, so let’s rank them high”. So you can forget about that idea. Important: The only time Google can rank a URL higher based on it’s URL words is if the keyword is not competitive. Ex: TopUploadButtonText.com

So how does having a keyword rich URL help you in your rankings “indirectly” ? Ever heard of “anchor text”? Anchor text is the words that other sites use to link to your website. Example:

Igor M. is a writer for his marketing blog that he updates every day.

Words “Marketing blog” are a link to my blog. I just told Google that this is a link to a site that has something to do with Marketing and a Blog. This is what Google will value as it clearly tells how other sites identify your website.

Now … many sites when they refer to your website will link to you using YOUR SITE’s NAME! And so if your website name and URL has keywords in it, you start benefiting from your keyword rich URL.

Look … it’s up to you to decide if you want to name your company based on what Google likes. If you’re looking to be in business for a long run I’d focus more on the brand name that will work with your target market and not worry about Google ranking you just because your URL is  bed-in-a-bag-comforter-set.com

On the other hand if you feel that having a keyword in your URL will help your prospects understand and remember what you do … go right ahead and buy the damn thing.