Something that is often overlooked when people set up a website is the importance of the domain name.
Most people want to come up with an original sounding, catchy name, which is fine for super sized corporate sites, however the average webmaster will rarely be able to create one of these super sites that spread through word of mouth.
As such, webmasters would do well to focus on acquiring a keyword rich domain name.
So why is it important? There are a variety of reasons, however the biggest reason is somewhat overlooked.
When other websites choose to link back to you, they will rarely use the anchor text of your choosing.
Most of the time the links anchor text will simply be the words in your domain name.
So by having an exact match domain name, you are automatically getting keyword anchor text links back to your site whenever another webmaster links to you.
This significantly boosts the links value.
There is also a boost given by search engines if you have the keyword in your URL.
When a keyword is searched for, a site with that keyword in its URL is more likely to appear high in the rankings than a site without the keyword.
This can make your life a lot easier.
Finally, it provides the benefit that you can easily target related keywords.
For example, if your domain name contains two keywords, you can start targeting related keywords that share at least one of the words in your domain name.
This can make expanding your site much easier and faster.