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
-
IP Canonicalization for HTTPS site?
I received an unsolicited SEO report for one of my sites. My site was faulted for not having IP canonicalization set up. I reviewed this carefully. My site runs on Apache, is https and is on a dedicated IP. The mod rewrite rules for Apache all deal with the http version of the site. When I type my site's IP into a browser, I get the the https version, but with a unsecure cert warning as the certificate does not include the IP. Should I implement the http IP canonicalization rule. Another rewrite rule would then redirect the request to the https version?
On-Page Optimization | | FatRodent20130 -
Any scripts for automated interlinking of sites?
I have heard about similar plugins for Wordpress, but I need something like this to run on all kind of sites, no matter the CSM. Are there universal scripts capable of doing automatic interlinking of pages to rise their weight for SEO purposes? Could you share links to such scripts/sites?
On-Page Optimization | | poiseo0 -
Site: command and intitle: command in Google changed?
Hi Mozzers, I'm seeing some changes in Google when using certain commands I've used for ages. I'm trying to spot cananical issues by using this search site:www.mysite.com intitle:"keyword" This used to list all pages in the index on a certain site with the keyword in the title. Now I'm getting weird results and sometimes results from other sites - not the one specified in the site: command. Anyone else seeing this? Thanks B
On-Page Optimization | | Bush_JSM0 -
I'm ranking Position 7,8,11,12,13,14 &15 but would rather one page top three - are they competing?
For the search phrase "office design birmingham" in the uk. I have mutiple pages ranking in position 7,8,11,12,13,14 & 15! This is all very well but are they somehow competing? Am i better off doing something different to get one or two into the top 3 rather than 7 in the top 15?! Many thanks for your opinion and advice. James
On-Page Optimization | | bizint0 -
Site structure question
I'm currently working on a very awkward custom-WP setup, in which I can't maintain the present drop-down navigation menu without having those pages under a parent or without completely recoding everything. I have two requirements, for SEO purposes I'm looking for the following structure for each targeted landing page: www.example.com/landing-page as opposed to www.example.com/sub/landing-page Of course, having my landing pages as a child, I get the latter of the two. For navigational purposes they need to fall under a specific category in a drop-down menu. With any other theme or setup this is an easy fix, but not here. What I have now is that the landing pages are currently placed under a parent category page. But, they have custom permalinks. The permalinks are setup as follows www.example.com/landing-page But, technically the exact structure is still www.example.com/sub/landing-page which then redirects to the custom permalink. So, my question is - in an attempt to get my most important landing pages close to the root for better PR and crawlability, do I still get the same benefit with my current setup? Is this structure I have, better, worse, or indifferent? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | JayAdams320 -
0 urls indexed in GWT, many found with site: command
Hi, This is happening with a brand new site. We have created sitemaps and submitted them to Google Webmaster Tools. GWT says sitemaps are ok, "x" number of urls submitted, but no urls indexed. When I check in Google with site:domain.com I see that many of the urls are already indexed. Why this discrepancy between GWT and reality? Thanks for your time!
On-Page Optimization | | gerardoH0 -
New Site + Transfered blog: Things to watch for?
Hey everyone. So here is what's going on. 1. Built new website. Will be using generally the same URL's as original. 2. Incorporated and expanded on a previously separate informative blog. a. Many articles contain very similar if not the same articles as our blog. 3. The blog will be taken down as soon as new site is put online. So my question is just. Could someone list the like top 5 important things I need to keep in mind before putting this website live? I don't mind searching forums and blogs for the how-to part; I just need to know what I should be thinking about and getting done pre-launch. I believe re-directing the blog articles should be done? Create and submit sitemap? Thanks, Web-creation newb
On-Page Optimization | | Earthsaver0 -
How to use good keyword URL to help main site
Hi. I'm a long time ecommerce guy and starting a third business. The main site URL is the name of the new business but I also purchased a .com URL that is our #1 keyword to target. So I need to know the best strategy to use the keyword url for helping with getting a top ranking for that keyword. I'm curious if I can or should build out the keyword URL site for the search engines and use a 301 redirect. Can you get top ranking for a site that just redirects? Anyway, I guess you get my question. This keyword gets a ton of perfectly targeted traffic so seems like a goldmine if I work it right. Thanks very much.
On-Page Optimization | | jimmyseo1