Best approach for a client with another site for the same company
-
I have a client who has an old website and company A handles the SEO campaign for this site.
My client wanted us to create a new website with unique content for the same company aiming to double his chances of ranking on the 1st of SERP's and eventually dominating it.
So we created the new site for him and handled it's SEO campaign. So far we are ranking decently on the search engines but we feel like we could do better. The site we are optimizing for him uses the same company, tracking number and a virtual address in the same city.
Do you think Google has a problem with this set up?
We have listed the new site in the citation directories but I'm worried that we are sending google mixed signals. The company has two listing on each directories, one for the old site and another for the new site.
Another thing, Google+ Local for the new site is created and verified but is not showing up in local pack.
What is the best way to approach this mess?
We are looking into ranking for both local & organic results. -
Hi Adam,
Good thinking. Hope it works out well. Situations like these can be layers deep and murky - tough to sort out. Wishing you the best!
-
Thank you Miriam.
You are right, I would need to have a heart to heart talk with my client to sort out these issue.
-
First, if the tracking number that you use for the citations vary from the number listed on the new website, the old website, and/or the old citations this is a problem. Trust me, I am currently handling a client who wanted to rank locally for a city that they did not have a business location at. Without consulting us, they set up an ad for that city with a tracking number BUT it was still associated with the same business name and address. I don’t know if you are aware but these different directories scrape information from each other and as a result new listings are created with inconsistent business information. It's not pretty and not only is this confusing to a potential client looking for your business but you have significantly decreased your chances at appearing in Google’s 7-pack.
Here are a few resources that I refer back to but I would start with Google Places Guidelines---
http://getlisted.org/resources/why-citations-are-important.aspx
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml
- Pay attention to questions 5 & 7
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/40-important-local-search-questions-answered
- This is a follow up to a mozinar that is totally worth watching too.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Adam,
We need to pedal back here to this:
"The site we are optimizing for him uses the same company, tracking number and a virtual address in the same city. "
and this:
"We have listed the new site in the citation directories...Another thing, Google+ Local for the new site is created and verified but is not showing up in local pack."
You have some root issues going on here. Both virtual offices and call tracking numbers for Local businesses are taboo in Google's local products. For legitimate participation in Google+ Local, your client needs to have:
-
Face-to-face transactions with customers either at the place of business (like a restaurant) or at the customers' locations (like a plumber).
-
A unique, physical street address (not a virtual office, P.O. box or shared address)
-
A unique local area code phone number (not a toll free, call tracking or shared number).
If the client cannot meet all 3 of the above criteria, then he is not suitable for inclusion in Google's local products, and he is not appropriate for a local citation building campaign.
So, this is actually the issue that needs to be sorted out first. Whether your client's failure to show up in the local results is due to a penalty stemming from Google considering the listing to be spam or stems from other issues is sort of moot, here, because the business model you are describing does not sound truly local to me.
For further reading, I recommend that both you and the client study Google's Places Quality Guidelines:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528
You will see precisely why the business model you are describing is problematic in the above guidelines.
Regarding the call tracking phone number element, read:
http://searchengineland.com/for-local-seo-lack-of-call-tracking-solution-spawns-cloaking-70198
Read that post and all of the links in it, as well, for full information on the history of issues surrounding call tracking numbers in the world of Local SEO.
My feeling is that a wrong estimation of this client's opportunities may have been made here and that Local SEO is being pursued in vain until he can meet those requirements. Having 2 websites now in existence for the client is only going to compound the issues. I never recommend double sites for local business owners, but where there is some reason why they feel they MUST have more than one website, I advise them to make sure that their NAP (name-address-phone) is only published on one of the websites. Everything hangs on NAP in Local and if you're telling Google that both www.johntheplumber.com and www.sandiegoplumber.com are located at 123 First St. San Diego, CA., this will confuse Google and potentially lead to duplicated listings and ranking drops. Total clarity and consistency of data are vital to any Local SEO campaign, but in this case, your first step is going to be to assess the client's actual business model and then determine whether they have a legitimate place in the local index or need to pursue purely organic SEO due to a lack of the elements essential to local inclusion.
Hope this helps!
-
-
Hi Amber,
We use the same address but different location which is a virtual address then a local tracking number for the citations.
Do you think Google could tell if it's a virtual address or not and if they could, is it going to have a negative effect in our rankings?
Also, what I meant by "local pack" is the local map listings that shows up together with the organic search.
As per Google maps, I searched my client's company name and we aren't showing up in there either.
-
Our company also have two websites, we launch the second website for different reasons than your client, We sell power tools and power tool parts in the second website we want focus more in parts.
The phone number and address it's the same in both sites. We also have many products that are available in both sites.
When we decided to launch the second website we thought that having the same address and phone number could be a problem for our rank. Now 4 months later I don't think it cause any problem. The first website that we had for years still ranking well and improving the rank, our new website is also doing well and progressing fast.
We tried to avoid duplicate content so the product descriptions, about us page, and blog entries are different for each website. Also we didn't include the new site in the local directories.
In my humble opinion as long you have different content in each website the phone number and address wont be a problem.
-
Hi Adam,
When you say you have listed the new site in the citation directories are you using the same business name, address and phone number? What is the difference in the business information on these listings?
From my understanding, if these citations have mixed information for the same business you have set yourself up for duplicate listings. Google uses the information from these sources to validate the business name, address, phone number and business details. If Google is seeing two different listings for the same company on these citation sources how will it know which one to trust enough to show in it's local/map results?
In the end I think your ranking power is going to be (or is being) divided greatly for Local.
Also, when you say the G+Local listing that you created for the new site is not showing up in the local pack- what are you considering the "local pack" or are you saying that the listing is not even appearing when you search for it in Maps?
Best,
Amber
-
Hi Adam,
This is my first time hearing about this approach. In my opinion, it seems like your client is trying to game the search engine by creating 2 sites and hoping one of them will rank better. I believe search engines will not like it since your client is trying to game the system. I don't think search engines will favor anyone gaming the system.
Why don't your client spend the time and money creating and ranking the new site on the old site?
They can use those time and money to build more quality links and producing more contents then they will definitely rank higher instead of start a new website and doing everything from scratch.
my 2 cents. Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Redirecting an Entire Site to a Page on Another Site?
So I have a site that I want to shut down http://vowrenewalsmaui.com and redirect to a dedicated Vow Renewals page I am making on this site here: https://simplemauiwedding.net. My main question is: I don't want to lose all the authority of the pages and if I just redirect the site using my domain registrar's 301 redirect it will only redirect the main URL not all of the supporting pages, to my knowledge. How do I not lose all the authority of the supporting pages and still shut down the site and close down my site builder? I know if I leave the site up I can redirect all of the individual pages to corresponding pages on the other site, but I want to be done with it. Just trying to figure out if there is a better way than I know of. The domain is hosted through GoDaddy.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | photoseo10 -
Can a duplicate page referencing the original page on another domain in another country using the 'canonical link' still get indexed locally?
Hi I wonder if anyone could help me on a canonical link query/indexing issue. I have given an overview, intended solution and question below. Any advice on this query will be much appreciated. Overview: I have a client who has a .com domain that includes blog content intended for the US market using the correct lang tags. The client also has a .co.uk site without a blog but looking at creating one. As the target keywords and content are relevant across both UK and US markets and not to duplicate work the client has asked would it be worthwhile centralising the blog or provide any other efficient blog site structure recommendations. Suggested solution: As the domain authority (DA) on the .com/.co.uk sites are in the 60+ it would risky moving domains/subdomain at this stage and would be a waste not to utilise the DAs that have built up on both sites. I have suggested they keep both sites and share the same content between them using a content curated WP plugin and using the 'canonical link' to reference the original source (US or UK) - so not to get duplicate content issues. My question: Let's say I'm a potential customer in the UK and i'm searching using a keyword phrase that the content that answers my query is on both the UK and US site although the US content is the original source.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonRayner
Will the US or UK version blog appear in UK SERPs? My gut is the UK blog will as Google will try and serve me the most appropriate version of the content and as I'm in the UK it will be this version, even though I have identified the US source using the canonical link?2 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
2 sites or one sites: 2 locations
Hello, I have a dog training client who is offering services in 2 separate locations. We're looking to be first in the non-local search results and also rank well in google places. Would it be better to go for 2 separate sites or one site and try to rank for 2 different locations with one site? There's both local and standard search results when we type in our keywords. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Anchor Text Diversification – Branded VS Non Branded – What is the best approach… if any?
Our organization competes in the Drug & Alcohol Treatment Category… very competitively I must say. While we create content for long-tail keywords, we focus on linking (blogging + Press Release + Acquisition, etc…) as the main strategy to increase relevancy for 4 major keywords. (Alcohol Rehab, Drug Rehab, Alcohol Treatment, and Drug Treatment)… all these terms have their respective landing pages, and we try to provide a good flow of new links coming to these pages on a weekly basis… Lately we have been acquiring more links than we anticipated… not a bad thing since they are from reputable websites… however I am a bit concern regarding the Anchor Text distribution of these links. Example Let’s say I get 100 links to my ‘Alcohol Rehab’ page – what is an appropriate percentage for the anchor text distribution? For example: Branded Links 20 - Keyword: St Jude Retreats
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dhidalgo1
Exact Match Links 70 - Keyword: Alcohol Rehab
Broad Links 10 - Keyword: Rehab Is this an ok distribution, or should I change things around? Hope you guys can help! Thanks!!!!0 -
Online Pharmacy Client
So... Have a client with a physical pharmacy in the UK, they are looking to branch out and start selling online... Primarily high value 'embarrassing medicines' etc... The have an existing companynamepharmacy.co.uk domain that has acted as a brochure site for the past 4 years (thats the domain age) still with low domain authority etc but they've also purchased a keyword match domain citynameonlinepharmacy.co.uk which they thought would be better to use... They are fully prepared for a reasonable wait on the organic listings and will head up the project with PPC and Google shopping integration which is known to be successful for other similar online pharmacies... Anyone tackled building an online pharmacy site from the ground up with any advice, specifically on the domain front, there is a trade off between the newly registered keyword match domain and the 4 year old company name match - Its clear with a pharma industry site we need to build trust so need to tick every box on that front...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalarts0 -
For multi language sites, what is best - two domains or one with both languages?
We are assisting a client in setting up English and Spanish sites in Texas. They want to be able to find customers who are Spanish speaking predominantly or totally along with the customers they now get who are English speakers. We are building them a new site and I have researched to find answers all over the board or less than clear. Should the structure be such that we have one site with a set of English and Spanish pages all with Spanish links to Spanish pages and English links to English pages. Should we instead just have an English site for those people who utilize English and a different site for those who utilize Spanish? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobertFisher0 -
SEO Company Referral
I am looking for a great US based SEO company referral. I try to do as much as I can on my end but the more I learn, then more I find I need help to do a great job. Lately running the business takes most of my time, and we need a team who really specializes in SEO. Can anyone recommend a SEO company with a great reputation, someone who has done great work for you in the past? I get many people contacting me with SEO promises, but I need some advice from someone with more experience than me. I appreciate all of your insights.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilityhealth0