Creating a Wordpress Multi-site - Should I have separate Domains or use Subdirectories?
-
Hello,
I have a company building out a website and wanted to get the community opinion on how we should set-up the domain network (separate domains or subdirectories).
Our company has several locations across the country and really act as their own entity in those locations (Austin, Norman, College Station, etc.). Currently, we have all the locations under 1 domain like so... maindomain.com/our-locations/norman. This clearly isn't they way it should be set-up and it was done a long time ago, so we are changing to either:
- Separate Domains already purchased
- Subdirectories such as maindomain.com/norman
I would like to know what would be the best strategy for our communities in regards to SEO?
Thanks!
-
Hi Tyler
You would simply direct the traffic to each of the folders/cities so the cost of Adwords could easily be assigned to each separate office.
There is nothing else to worry about
Regards
Nigel
-
Hi Tyler,
Can you be more specific? What types of issues?
-
Thank you! That makes sense to me on the SEO side.
Any domain issues when it comes to AdWords tracking?
Thanks!
-
Hi Tyler,
I second Nigel's vote for the single domain approach. In a nutshell, it's nearly always better to build your brand on a single website than to try to spread your efforts across multiple websites. Local SEO best practice is to stick with a single domain on which you build out the necessary pages to reflect your various branches, linking to them from a high level menu or a combination of a store locator widget + an accessible html menu somewhere on the site so that you can be sure these pages get indexed.
-
Hi Tyler
You should go with the second option. It is by far the best for SEO. Have the main company information on the main site and then have the different locations as a first sub-directory as you have written it:
Make sure that the new city pages are rich with local information - drop in a photo of the city centre with an alt tag 'Norman' - talk about the main attractions of the town and flesh out the pages with contextually rich local information. Don't simply copy content from the main site as the duplicated content will drag the page down SERPS. If you do this correctly you will have a very good chance of ranking No.1 for your service + City in search.
Don't even think about setting up domains for each city - in fact, go and sell/delete them now!
I hope that helps - oh and don't forget to use Google my business to set up Googe local for all locales! and get plenty of local citations for each city. It should really rock if you do that!
Regards Nigel
Carousel Projects
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
-
Good service that helps optimize and create citations to google map listing?
Hi guys, Anyone know good service that helps optimize and create citations to google map listing? Also is there recommended WP theme that helps the ranking on google map? Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | Tariq_Jameel1 -
When I search my business, how can I make all my locations to a multi-location business appear in the map pack?
I have a question about local SEO. I do the marketing for a multi-location medical facility. When I search the facility on Google, the website appears on the left and the Google My Business information for the nearest facility to me appears on the right. However, I would like to see a map-pack of all facilities appear under the website information as well. How can I make all locations appear in the map-pack form below my basic website information?
Local Listings | | FlynnZaiger0 -
Found a yelp review by unknowing client of webdesigner who made a one page site. bad seo
One page sites are fine and dandy, but if you are a local biz...Just no! Here's my story with a few questions. I did a search on google site:http://eatfullbellydeli.com/ and it resulted in four pages: Main; menu; hello world; category; uncategorized. I'm not a web designer...I do seo. 1.) How rude would it be for me to reach out to the designer to comment and give suggestions? 2.) or should I reach out to the owner. 3.) Or just close my eyes and say "i hate people that take advantage of others"
Local Listings | | Ohmichael0 -
How to create a 2nd Google listing for the same brand
Hi All, We have an office in Berkeley CA which has a Google listing. Now we have launched a new office in Hayward CA and we're thinking of how exactly we should create the new Google listing for the office: Create a new google account and submit the page URL in it? Create a new Google account under our Berkeley google account. i.e. to have both under the same account in Google Thanks, Tomer
Local Listings | | OrendaLtd0 -
Local sites to make sure I'm listed in - which ones?
I'd love to know what sites this community deems most important when looking at whether my business & site are listed there. I know the obvious - Google Places, Yahoo Maps, Bing Local, Yelp. Foursquare. What others do you consider to be "mission critical" to the general market? Thanks!
Local Listings | | wcksmith10 -
Local SEO and Sites by Order of Opinion?
Okay, so we were just having a discussion about which sites/directories are the most important to be listed in for Local SEO. Ultimately we were looking to 'sort' these by order of importance for the typical local business. Google My Business Yelp Yahoo! Local Bing Local Foursquare YellowPages.com SuperPages.com CitySearch HotFrog How would you order them? Would you add anything to the list? Thanks!
Local Listings | | ClickMonsterIM1 -
What to do if the domain name is very different from real business name for local listings
Hey guys, any advice is very welcome , I m´ ranking locally a website in the bay area for cabinets www.cabinetsbayarea.com we picked this domain name more for SEO purposes because it has the two most important keywords that we want to rank. My issue is that the real busniess name is HEMA DESIGN CENTER, so i dont know if we should change the name in the chamber of commerce to CABiNETS BAY AREA or list the business as HEMA DESIGN CENTER, with this website www.cabinetsbayarea.comr. We only mention the real name in the About Us. CABINETS BAY AREA it is more as a deparment of the real business name HEMA DESIGN CENTER What should i do? Thanks a lot, David
Local Listings | | conexion330 -
Local SEO: Creating a Second home-based business?
I'm in a bit of a pickle, here's the issue: I have a home-based business with a physical address. I plan on starting another home-based business at the same physical address. I only have one phone (cellphone). I plan on operating both businesses unless one completely eclipses the other. I can probably see your head spinning right now . . . how big of NAP issues are we looking at? I own my house, I could probably add a line to the new business address (like a suite # or something) I can afford a landline or secondary cellphone if necessary Any thoughts, ideas, criticisms, direction, hate-mail, or solutions?
Local Listings | | roachdesign0