One company - 2 websites
-
One of our clients decided to launch a 2nd website to market specific products and services that they provide. The trouble is, they have the same address, phone number and have a similar name. Whilst we have had some success and both websites are on page 1 for their primary keywords, I have a bad feeling that they may have hit a glass ceiling.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to perform local SEO?
-
My firm uses several websites. When I first came in house there were a lot of sites, but I took them down because of the content quality at the time. I am slowly building them back up. I find that specific area websites can be very useful for pointing ads or specific campaigns, since many people want to know just about X concept I am very careful not to reproduce content and not to try to hide that the sites are owned by the same company.
I hesitated to bring the sites back up until I got some confirmation from Matt Cutts that having more than one site is fine, as long as you follow good content and other SEO standards. http://www.brafton.com/news/cutts-on-similar-website-content-multiple-domains-duplicate-or-safe
I link between the sites, but in an organic way. I.e. if I have an article on one site that naturally links to another site, I link it. I also don't have a huge number of sites and don't expect to do so.
-
I agree with what you are saying. The issue is that Google still ranks keyword driven domains, and secondary sites very high in their searches. We personally don't engage in the practice, but it is very frustrating to see these types of actions happening when they clearly are against it, and put webmaster articles out saying it's bad.
Most of the secondary sites are created for this reason, to gain a higher rank, with less effort. Local businesses tend to "gain" the most from this, as domain names are usually available for yourcityandservicekeyword.com
I don't think it is a wise long term strategy, but anyone who denies that it still works, and often, is kidding themselves. Not being negative, just trying to voice an opinion. Most of the seos set these type of sites up due to a low budget amount from the client. Trying to create a real seo plan and create ongoing dynamic content is almost impossible for a $300-400 client. The seo knows they can register a keyword-driven domain, and after creating a ton of citations, most likely come out on top (especially since the backlinks coming from these will be an exact match for the keyword they want to rank for.) The clients see this as great, because they get an influx of new leads, but don't understand the damage they do to their brand, or the long term risks involved in a future update.
Don't get me wrong, lol. I'm not arguing with anything you said, and I agree with the items you referenced and quoted 100%. But Google, despite their public perception and webmaster quotes, is not perfect. There is a chance he could get both sites to rank, and rank well. Not with how they are currently set up, but with a lot of work separating the content, and changing one to brand focus and the other to keyword focus, it could work.
Still wouldn't do it tho. She is right. Spend the effort on the main domain you want to rank. You would most likely spend just as much time trying to get both to rank as you would getting one killer site in place, but not have the future risk of a penalty.
-
Hi Mark,
I think you're right to be concerned. The mutli-site approach is one I pretty much never recommend to local business owners. Google's own John Mueller has clearly stated that Google prefers the single site approach (see: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-one-site-locations-15454.html). As far as Google's rules go, it's not permitted to create a second local listing for a set of products a company vends. That's striclty forbidden, in fact (see: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en).
I've had business owners come to me in this situation and I've had to take a hard line with them and leave it up to them to take my advice or not. I tell them that they are a single company and should be running a single website backed up with a single set of citations for the business (unless they have more than one physical location, in which case, they can build out separate citations for each location). Ideally, the client should:
-
Consolidate his sites into a single site
-
Redirect his old URLs to the authoritative one
-
Clean up any citations that have been built as though this were 2 companies instead of one.
Alternatives:
-
The client can found a new business if his products are different enough to merit the effort of doing so. The new business would need a unique name, address and phone number.
-
If he insists on keeping the second site, all NAP (name, address, phone) should be removed from it as well as all references/links to the main site. He could run a blog on it or something about his industry, but he should not attempt to rank locally with this second site in any way. Content should not be duplicated in any way between the two sites. Once you start explaining this to the client, he may say, "Well then what is the point of the second site, if I can't try to promote it as though it were a second business?" That can be a sort of 'bingo' moment that can help you to help him see that he should really think hard about consolidating.
What I've found over the years is that business owners sometimes take this multi-site approach because they feel it will make them look bigger to Google and help them diversify their rankings. In point of fact, in the local business sphere, it only hampers them. Google wants an accurate representation of the business with a single, consistent set of NAP and a clear, authoritative website. This way, everything the business does goes towards strengthening their brand. The stronger their brand becomes, the easier it will be for them to rank for their various products.
Hope these thoughts are helpful. I'm wishing you luck discussing this with the client. I know it's not always easy:)
-
-
Thanks for the reply. The problem is that it is a local business and looking to rank well for local results.
1. Too late, the domains are pretty close to each other.
2. The content is unique on both websites, but some of the categories and product names are similar
3. Both sites need to rank well for local searches. Using this advice means that the 2nd website will not be able to perform well locally. Am I right in saying that the websites can not effectively co-exist with the same details?
As I say, both websites are on page 1 for their primary keywords but are struggling to get near the top of the page. Is there anything I can do or will Google always treat them as duplicates and hold them back?
-
Here is a few things to watch for with this:
1. Domain name are not closely related
2. Each site has its own unique content. DO NOT have matching pages on each, as Google doesnt take to kindly to that. Even if they don't penalize, they will index the newer version, and the older will be very difficult to get to recover.
3. Link to the local listing only off of one site. I think you will be ok displaying the address on both sites, but get creative with it. Instead of displaying live text, have the address and phone be a jpeg or png. That way, it will not be "crawlable". This isnt the most...legit way of doing it, but if you need to display it on both sites, it will work without fail. This will allow your vistors to see the contact info, and avoid an issue with Google.
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
-
Website with higher domain authority and good content not ranking locally?
I've got a client that has a higher domain authority than top ranking sites, is pretty well optimized from a content perspective, has good local reviews but still isn't ranking well at all... often not at all in local results. We don't show in map pack or even regular organic listings in a pretty small city. They are a local sign shop- so they make business signs/church signs etc. Have you seen anything negatively impacting local rankings that is worth digging into as possible cause? A few historical insights: They had some spammy backlinks (we think a competitor was being shady) that I've sent disavow files into Google for They had a previous SEO person create 100's of orphan pages for every possible city + offering combination you can think of- I've cleaned those up via 301 redirects Should I just keep waiting, doing content optimization or am I missing something else?
Local Listings | | karmadigital0 -
Local SEO Tasks When Closing One Branch of Multilocation Business
I would appreciate the opinions of my fellow SEOs on this one. I haven’t seen any other threads on this exact subject and others that touch on it are somewhat older so I am hoping this also proves to be a good resource for others going forward. I have an existing client that I did local SEO for about a year ago. They are a propane service provider and they had multiple locations. So we did local SEO for the company primarily by updating NAPs and creating more individual content for each of the branches such as specific landing page for each branch on their website and individual listings in citations for each branch. Now they have sold one of the branches to a competitor and they need to remove all listings for it. I am trying to develop a comprehensive list of actions to take and I would appreciate any feedback on the best way to go about accomplishing this task. Here is what I have so far: Remove all mention of sold branch on client website, including specific landing page Delete any branch-specific social media accounts Some specific areas I have questions about are: What do I do with Google My Business listings for the sold branch? Do I try to delete/unregister/close them? Or should I just leave them be with an updated link to our website homepage? Should I even bother contacting the main NAP listing sites to remove the old listing or just leave it to fall off on its own? Thank you again for all your help!
Local Listings | | Ayres-SEO0 -
How do you go about updating / correcting bad business listings when you cannot contact the website directly?
There is a business listing I wish to correct / update on 411dir.biz There is no way to contact the website online, and in cases like this, I try to do a whois lookup, and reach out via the email / phone number there. This site seems impossible to connect with, has anybody else come up against situations like this in the past, if so what do you tell your client / what other approaches do people have? Thanks!
Local Listings | | ParadigmPCB0 -
Listing a physical address on an ecommerce website?
Hey Mozzers! Got a question for you. I’ve been assigned my first ecommerce client. He doesn’t want to list his physical business location, as he fears that including his address will hurt him on a national level (he ships all over the world). He’s not particularly interested in ranking locally, although he wouldn’t mind it. He only wants to show a PO box address. Will this help or hurt him? I believe it’s the latter. Also, he has 16 shipping points across the U.S. Is it helpful to add these cities and states to the site? Thanks in advance! -Kanya
Local Listings | | RainmanCreative0 -
2 businesses same phone number
I was wondering how I should approach a scenario where I am optimizing two different companies websites that have the same phone number but different addresses. This sounds like a weird scenario, however it is out of my control. Is treating them as two separate companies fine, or do I have to take special precautions when submitting business directories and what not? Thanks for everyone's help! As a side note, is their a way to use Moz Local with both companies, right now it is getting confused as to what business belongs to what listing.
Local Listings | | brfieger0 -
Removing website from search while you have Pending Google Places Listing
Hello, If you have assign a website in Google places that is in Pending mode, and you removed the website in WMT, from the searches. Will be denied in google places? Thanks for your help.
Local Listings | | EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT1 -
Best Practices For Local SEO For A Nation Wide Property Company?
Hi There, I've recently acquired a client that sells property all over the country (South Africa). It's in their best interests to rank well for localised keywords relating to the areas they have listed properties in. eg. Property for sale in example suburb/town/province. The project has a number of challenges which I'd appreciate any suggestions for The site acts as an aggregator for numerous partner property agents and, as s such, has a lot of duplicate content on it The company only has offices in one city. It handles online bookings which it then passes to its partner agencies - this presents me with a problem of creating listings in the areas I need to rank for I cannot list the actual addresses of properties Your thoughts and advice would be seriously appreciated.
Local Listings | | KJDMedia1