Setting up a separate site for link building
-
We are jump starting a link building campaign for a personal injury law firm.
We're planning on doing things right with earning links to content people will actually want to share, sponsoring local events, etc.
We're a little worried that some good opportunities could be missed due to the fact some people have assumptions about personal injury lawyers and would be hesitant to link to us simply because of our injury, regardless of what we're trying to share/promote.
One solution we're considering is creating a foundation associated with the firm that supports relevant causes and provides the public with educational resources. That might get over our branding hurdle a bit.
We've also discussed setting up a separate site for the foundation and actually building links to it rather than our main site, then linking the foundation site to our main site. The hope would be that we could get more links to the foundation site and it would in turn pass on link juice to our main site.
My concern is whether this strategy makes any sense. We'd be putting good content on this foundation site rather than our main site. How much link juice would actually be passed on to our main site in this case? Would so much be lost that it would negate the whole purpose?
-
Thanks for responses, everybody. Very insightful, as usual.
-
Use the main domain for your promotional items. If the site is not currently set up for that, I would invest your money and time into making the main site as good as it possibly can be. Install a blog, add in content, promote from within.
Your existing domain most likely has weight and authority, and will have more than a new domain registration. Depending upon how you structure the site, you may not even have to brand or constantly remind people it is about or being sponsored by a personal injury law firm. What you are wanting to accomplish is additional exposure whether it be through backlinks, additional visits, etc. When you are planning out your strategy, think of what type of content you are going to include, and where people search for that type of information. Then, go out and participate in those areas or forums/sites/blogs/discussions. This will save you a lot of time from wasted effort in places that have limited exposure or people that are not willing to share.
-
Tough question.
I think the foundation idea is good, you definitely need to distance yourself from the bad name associated with that business sector if you want to rise the probability of gaining good backlinks.
But I would put it in a subfolder on the same domain. And I would design the site and the homepage to give prominent visibility to your foundation.
It would require a lot of effort, time and money to promote the foundation-domain, and the juice/authority/rank/trust you will gain won't be that easy to transfer to the firm-domain, you can't just wait for the foundation-domain to gain trust/authority/rank/juice and then “spam” it with links to the other domain, you won't transfer much juice that way.
On the other side if you build it as a subfolder you may gain less backlinks but each one will give juice to the firm-domain directly, immediately and 100% of that juice.
Also... What Matt Cutts or Rand Fishkin or many others would answer to you? Probably, that you should completely forget seo, juice, and so on... And just focus on what is better experience for your users, what is better for the image of that company, what is so completely “white” hat that could be confused with milk? And in your case, what is better than frankly and honestly promote that foundation directly from the firm-domain? It's going to improve confidence and trust for the firm-domain from day one, they would benefit no matter how much easier it's going to make your work trying to gain backlinks.
-
Hi Lee,
The foundation site idea sounds like a real roundabout way of achieving organic traffic and hence sales - which from a high level I'm assuming is what you're trying to achieve. It would perhaps make more sense if you were going to use the Foundation site to drive referrals, or to use for PR, rather than solely for link equity purposes.
It wouldn't take much for Google to work out that the foundation site is a bit of a cynical attempt to gain rankings.
If I was you I'd focus on improving the content and linkability of your client's existing site and address some of the branding issues head on rather than side-stepping them with a sister website. You can incorporate the "foundation" idea into the existing website (perhaps on a subdomain or directory), which if done properly - with valuable content - will earn natural links and therefore gain far more organic value than having a sister website.
George
-
I would not go for the second domain solution with a foundation. Regardless if you generate many links to this site, you will just give a tiny part of link juice to your mainsite through some links. Just imagine the example that another big page is linking to you, you will not automatically get all its link juice, right? Moreover you can get trouble if both domains are registered on the same name or use same IP adresses etc, as google identifies this as your "personal" link farm.
If you really think you will benefit THAT much from a second foundation domain page I would more think about how you get a good amount of the traffic from the foundation site to your mainpage and convert it there. But then I would try to rank only with the foundation domain.
Cheers,
Heiko
-
This would be a no no for me.
Create the content within your domain and try to gain links to it, this will help improve your SEO efforts on the website.
Depending on your CMS you could create a section on your website entitled "Foundation" have the content in here and have it branded slightly differently from your main site, this may encourage others to link to you but you would still have the benefits of the links pointing to your domain.
Also have a search on Google for the terms "link building" and "boring" this will give you some great guides for building links within not so exciting industries!
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
-
Setting up a Affiliate Linking Program
Hello all, I work for a travel booking agency that specialises in coach and minibus hire. I am currently thinking about creating a Affiliate Linking Program to create some links for the business. So this could be a suppliers page (similar to a directory page) with details of related companies to ours. We can link to there site and they can link to ours - its win-win situation for both parties. Is there a difference between a Affiliate Program for links and a business directory on your site? Has anyone done something similar to this before? What are peoples thoughts? Thanks for your help in advance - Aqib
Link Building | | SMCCoachHire0 -
Sitewide link to a sister site question
I own two websites that are somewhat related. On Site A, in the nav bar below the header I had a link to Site B. The nav bar shows on all several hundred pages. A few weeks ago I got nervous about this as I was doing some reading about sitewide links. Not exactly sure if they were a bad thing or not in this specific case, I decided to change the nav bar so that the link to Site B only showed up on Site A's home page. Well, within a week or so my site started dropping from its long-held #1 position for its main, high-volume keyword, slipping a bit every few days. Today it is #4. My question is, would the removal of the sitewide links and replacement of them with just a link on the homepage cause something like this to happen? And, I'm thinking about putting the sidewide menu link back in -- is this a bad idea? Note: the ranking on Site B is very important, with double the RPM of Site A.
Link Building | | bizzer0 -
Link building
What is the difference between External Followed Links and Total External Links, why are the numbers different? Should the numbers not be the same? I have a difference of 24 links can anyone explain why?
Link Building | | vendorshop0 -
Hey guys wondering which is more important getting links from authority sites or relevant sites?
basically a site that has really high authority but not that relevant or medium authority pages but relevant. an example an authority site with a mozrank of 80 or a relevant site of 20.
Link Building | | shrikey0 -
Link Building Features/Tutorials
I am previewing this software and am getting a little lost in its features. I am really looking for something that will help me identify link prospects, filter out the low-authority domains, and organize this information into an actionable list. Can anyone point me to resources (tutorials, etc.) on how to do that with this software? Which tools should I be using and how can I use them to reach these goals?
Link Building | | Falconberg0 -
New ways to get links (excluding on site link bait)?
Fellow SEOs, I’m looking for a new way to reach out to bloggers and site owners for links. There are quite a few link bait techniques to lure bloggers thanks to = amazing content, infographics,...but there are not so many articles on ways to contact bloggers/webmasters and ask for links... We all know that contacting site owners directly and politely asking then to place a link on their home page is as useful as a comb in Bruce willis’s hand. Link exchange is as dead as the Dodo and business partner links are usefull and easier to get but opportunities are often limited. I have been organizing contests for bloggers recently and it has been quite successful up to now, but I always like to have a spare trick up my sleeve. So if any of you have a decent method to reach out to bloggers/webmaster and get decent links please let me know, I will be forever thankful ; ) Cheers
Link Building | | ref.price0 -
Learning link building
I want to learn from one of the best how to do real link building. I currently outsource this and just aren't sure if they're that good or not. Can you please let me know if Rand is doing any training or presentations on this in L.A or California this year? And if not him maybe someone else you can recommend who's good. Thanks much.
Link Building | | afranklin0