Great domain name but what do with it?

[RobinStent]

Hi, I hope this is the right place to post this.
I run a transport and home moving business, which has existed since 2014, currently operating in one city, with plans to expand to others.
I have an IT background and have done quite a bit of research into SEO over the years, but I'm not sure what to do now and I'm hoping you guys can advise.
The domain name I have is exactly the name of my business and is 5 characters + TLD. I've had this domain since I started the business.
I quite like having a short domain name and have structured my URLs to be short such as /about/ and /reviews/ and would continue this if I expand to other cities such as domain.tld/cityname
The most popular search phrase for me is 5 words long and in recent years I've ranked between position 4 and position 8 for this phrase.
Most of my competitors who rank above me have called their business something that contains most of the words in this popular search phrase, in various orders and have a domain name to match, but none of them match the phrase exactly.
I've managed to buy the domain name that exactly matches this search phrase (searchphrase.com) but the question now is, what do I do with it?
I don't want to change the name of the business to match this new domain because I have significant brand recognition (5 times as many click throughs as for the popular search).

I'm considering linkbuilding with the new domain, and redirecting it to the old one. Do you think this is likely to help, or will Google penalise me for this behaviour?
It seems my other options are:
Move my site to the new domain, and keep the same business name
Build a separate site as a new brand of the business on the new domain, and linkbuild for that

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts on the best way to capitalise on having this domain gratefully received.

[not2easy]

A domain with inbound links that redirects to another domain is not going to help much. That could earn a penalty. If you are able to get links to the searchterm domain it would surprise me. I don't see it as a good strategy.

It seems that the older, shorter name makes more sense. On the other hand there is nothing wrong with having the search term domain but it would need to have relevant content in order to rank at all.

[tangor]

In business, a name is what you make of it.

They call that "branding". In the real world (which includes the web), brand takes precedence. Stick with what works. Use the other as an ADJUNCT (addition to, not redirect!) to the main biz.

[Brett_Tabke]

Backlinks can certainly help. The problem is that in the moving (or any Local Services business) is getting people to link to it. That and the fact Google makes billions off the LS sector, so they have every incentive to push people into adwords (especially moving companies).

> what to do with it

I would build it out as a content site and then just run ads on it back to your main site. Let the new site build cred while giving fresh exposure to the old site.

> Google problem

If you go that route, there is no issue. Just hard 301 redirect the old site to the new one. Do note that links to the original may lose there juice after all. Some SEO's think that Google drops Pagerank flowing through 301's after a set period (big debate on how long that is...).

[lucy24]

Five letters + tld? KEEP IT.

[RedBar]

Loads of 4 letter com/net/org available for USD 99, I registered a 4 letter .net only this week for my regular price of USD 13, of course really good ones can command huge prices if one feels that need!

[tangor]

The domain that everyone wants is:

enrichme dot now

Sadly, taken or not, never works the way you want...