Three Sites or One?
-
I have a client who provides three distinct, although related, services. Some of his competitors only provide one of those services, and thus their sites are more saturated with that particular service. Would it be best to develop three different sites optimized for each particular service, or could I achieve the same effect by optimizing different sections of one site for each service?
-
I am a business owner and have multiple services. So I can give you my recommendation from my experience.
Maintaining multiple sites is a PITA. One problem is you have one company name but two websites for it, or if you do have a different company name for each, how will the phone be answered. Sure, you can get around that but there a many other inconveniences, like multiple business cards etc.. or with one physical location will only allow you one google-local entry.
The main page has a main h1 heading at the top listing the services ie "Epoxy Flooring, Concrete Resurfacing, Stone Restoration serving Delaware"
What I did is Summerize each of my services on my main page with h2 headers followed by a paragraph below the heading optimizing the text as best I could.
The h2 headers and paragraphs are formatted in 2 columns by 3 rows (6 services) on the main page as try to dilute any top to bottom bias.
What's very important is what EGOL said about cross services ie cross selling, Its much better to expose your customer to all your services.
-
Thanks all for the advice. I'm definitely recommending combining everything into one site. Right now he's got 2 sites, each focusing on different aspects/services that he provides. Any recommendations on how to effectively leverage the traffic he's already getting to the 2nd site (that I'll remove)?
Also, can anyone point me to examples of sites that have effectively optimized for multiple services on the same site?
To give a little more background, this client offers a number of related services, including doctor assisted weight loss and hormone therapy (among several others). Many of his competitors only deal with one of those services, so their sites are all about weight loss or hormone therapy. My client's concern is that a potential patient will come to his site for, say weight loss, and be turned away because it's lost among all of the other services, while his competitors are clearly all about simply weight loss.
As EGOL noted below, this client thrives on cross-selling his services, and in my mind one of his main selling points is that he is a one-stop-shop for multiple, related services.
-
I have a similar situation with a client. She's got one site right now and she wants me to create a second one. It's mostly because she found a domain name that she's in love with. But, I know that one site is going to be a lot easier to promote than two. Her two ideas for sites are very closely connected.
I think I've finally convinced her to stick with one site but have a section of that main site totally dedicated to her new idea.
This way, any links that come to either section will benefit the site as a whole.
-
If this is one client, unless they are separate business entities, hands down it should be one site. It's A LOT easier to SEO one site than it is three, and your work is going to pay off a lot more as well.
-
I agree with Sheldon, especially if there are cross-selling opportunities between the related services.
-
Hi, Kevin-
Without knowing a little more about the niche and the services, it's difficult to give a definitive answer. But I think that in most instances, I would be inclined to simply concentrate on fleshing out the pages that deal with each individual service, all contained within one site. In that fashion, I think you'll gain more authority to the site, while still focusing on each service as needed.
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
-
SEO for a Domain which contains Multiple individual sites
My website structure www.example.com (wordpress installation number 1)
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
www.example.com/forum/ (vbulletin installtion)
www.example.com/shop/ (wordpress installation number 2) Each of these individual pages contains a fresh wordpress/vbulletin installation with their individual admin control panel. Am i doing this website entirely wrong? Is my website considered as a single website or does Google classify it as 3 different websites? My Ranking page is, www.example.com, and by blog post is www.example.com/forum/blog. When i do a link within my blog entry to my main ranking page, does it count as external or internal link?0 -
Ecommerce On-Site SEO: Keywords in Category Descriptions
Hello, I'm doing on-site SEO for a client's ecommerce site. Are 160 words enough for a category description? I'm using the keywords once at the top of the description, and once at the bottom of the description, with the ones at the bottom reworded so that they are the keywords with a different word order. I used to put the keywords in 3 times but it just feels like stuffing. Is twice, worded differently the second time, enough for a category description? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Which Blog Platform to link to an eCommerce site is best?
I just hired a content writer to blog on my site, but I want to make sure I have the right blog set up properly before doing so. I currently have my blog on my own domain. http://alturl.com/ixd7p It's a pretty crappy blog, to be quite frank. (The link to the blog is in the footer). It doesn't allow me to change category titles so it's throwing duplicate content - not good. I am seriously considering getting a self hosted Wordpress blog and linking that to my site instead at 3dcart- so it will be blog.domainname.comMy CONCERN.... I always heard that it's best to have the blog right right on the eCommerce site (just as I have it now) because it keeps feeding the domain fresh content. If I have a self hosted Wordpress blog and have it linked to my site, will it still feed my site fresh content?
On-Page Optimization | | tutugirl0 -
What is this site all about?
Can anyone here tell me what this site is all about?... I really need to know, i have a blog.
On-Page Optimization | | Wales33030 -
Site Architecture: How do I best Optimize for Similar Keywords?
Hello Moz Community! I'm really struggling trying to decide on an improved site architecture. I run an online proofreading & editing website. This leaves us targeting many different niche keywords. For example: blog editing/proofreading, essay editing/proofreading, book editing/proofreading, resume... you get the point. I feel like editing & proofreading are similar enough to target on the same page(s). However, the issue is that I'm also having to deal with what I'm calling derivative keywords. For example, when I try to optimize for 'essay editing/proofreading', I also have to think about: paper editing, paper editor, paper correction, edit my paper, etc. I would have no problem optimizing the page for 'essay editing' in the title, H1, etc. and then targeting these words as secondary keywords within the body text, etc., however, I keep thinking 'a large slice of a small pie is better than a small slice of a big one.' You see, the keyword 'essay correction' has only about one-third the monthly searches as 'essay editing', but it is 50% less competitive. The same is loosely true for the rest of the 'derivative' keywords. I'd have no problem building specific pages for these derivative keyword groups, however, I'm very concerned how this would effect my site from a user experience perspective. I don't want to have a master "services" page with links to book editing, resume editing, essay editing, etc. and then also show paper editing, essay correction, etc. To me, this would be confusing... "What's the difference between essay editing and paper editing?". Any guidance is much appreciated. This has got my head spinning! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | TBiz0 -
Is it best to optimize your site for just one or two keywords?
My company/website makes and sells a product that's not that competitive but still has about 20 key words/phrases that people search for. My site is not a huge site maybe 35 pages after you include the blog posts.We sell samples off the site but it's mostly used as a brochure but we also want it to be a successful tool at bringing in leads. Should I optimize for the most popular key word phrases focusing on only one or two per page and forget about the rest or should I try to optimize for as many keywords as possible on all pages or should I optimize for just the few (3-5) heavy hitting keywords but on all pages? Right now I've got it optimized for around 3 keyword phrases for the whole site and only 1 or 2 per page with the most popular phrases on the most important pages.
On-Page Optimization | | JAARON0 -
Site Structure
I'm confused about the best way for seo to set up the site structure . i understand the examples of the pyramid diagrams and how link juice flows, however does this mean that global navigation is not good? It appears the pyramid structure leads to the designated number of category pages (we'll use five) and they lead to the 5 content pages etc and some "superman pages" can be linked to from the home page but is this is global navigation or anchor text navigation and is gloval navigation acdeptable for content pages? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | JulB0 -
Site URL's
We are redeveloping our website, and have the option to amend URLs (with 301 redirects from old URL to new), so my question is: Would 'golfsite.com/golf-clubs' achieve superior rankings than 'golfsite.com/clubs' for the search term 'golf clubs' if all other factors were the same? Should the URL reflect the intended search term wherever possible?
On-Page Optimization | | swgolf1230