[keyword].subdomain.com vs. domain.com vs. domain.com/[keyword]

Hi,

I've got the problem that I've got a brand so I've got registered [brand].[tld]. But for SEO purposes it would be nice and nearly nessary to put the keyword into the domain. But there weren't good domains for the needed keywords so I used the brand.

Today I've discussed with a good friend the scenario to do a 301 redirect from domain.com to [keyword].domain.com. He has the opinion that this would be better, but I think the TLD has more power even if it doesn't contain the keyword. And then would be the solution to have domain.com/[keyword]

So what's the best?
1. domain.com
2. [keyword].domain.com
3. domain.com/keyword

If you have sources please post this sources. I didn't found anything especially if [keyword].domain.com is better than domain.com.

Any help would be nice

Best regards,
Bytefaker

[keyword].domain.com/keyword will be your best option and if you really don't want a live site in the domain, then yeah, make a 301 redirecting to the new page

Sources: a lot of reading around this forums and some others, and also personal experience.

Keyword on the domain aswell as in the page name will get you better results, combined with using it in the title and all the other stuff you should already know

The site is live.... So I would have to change the .htaccess/redirects. You think [keyword].domain.com/[keyword or keyword2] would be more attractive than domain.com?

What I ask myself too is if I only should use this for the startpage/landing-page but every other site really normal as domain.com/[seo optimized topic] instead of [keyword].domain.com/[keyword or keyword2]/[seo optimized topic]...

I think it would be ugly but there is also the possibility to have a 301-redirect of domain.com to [keyword]-123.com.

Are there other opinions?

personally i would go with something like keyword.domain.tld/keyword as said above but only for landing pages to capture traffic and have my main site just on domain.tld.

we tend to buy separate domains with the keyword in (for landing pages) as well as using subs.

but... if it was me i would try it out for a few weeks, maybe make a change and see if the change is better or worse.