Microsites vs. one site
-
My client has created a product that he wants to market to two, very different, audiences. The goal is to funnel them through the site and get them to purchase. My question is about the best SEO strategy on how to do this effectively.
Since they are distinct audiences with little in common we've recommended building two microsites, and optimizing each with unique content and different keyword focus. I realize it will be harder to optimize two sites rather than one, but it seems to make sense from a user perspective. But once the users goes to a "non-audience specific" page, like any page that is about the product or company and not about the audience, should we build yet a third website that houses the "company/product pages" and channel the conversions there in order to avoid having duplicate content on the two other sites? Or should we put the same "company pages" on both the Audience A and Audience B websites, only vary the text so it doesn't look like duplicate content. Or is the microsite strategy flawed all together?
Please keep in mind this is a brand new product and it has national scope. There is no local focus. We will be building their rankings entirely from scratch. I REALLY appreciate any insights you may have. We have been going around and around about this. Thanks
-
Agree with the others here, two or three sites definitely are a lot harder to maintain, and a properly-structured website can cater to different types of audiences, even when they vary a lot. You'll want to be very careful with the UX and perhaps work with some conversion rate optimisation people as well to segregate the audiences and not confuse the sales process for either, but this should be possible, especially if you focus your marketing for each audience to drive traffic to pages where there is no initial cross-over (shared navigation, etc.). I am guessing since I have not seen either product or preliminary site (if there is one), but I believe that one site would be better given that there will be shared pages, such as company information.
If you were to create two sites, I suggest canonicalising the duplicate content to one version of the site, most likely the one with the larger user base or higher potential return. E.g., www.site.com/company-information and www.b2bsite.com/company-information are canonicalised to www.site.com/company-information if www.site.com is the primary business interest.
-
I have 3 sites selling the same product,
BUT I got my first site to the top of Bing and Google for all my keywords before I bothered making a second site, and like wise I waited till I was dominating the serps before I bothered with a third.
Get your first site to rank before trying to be tricky.
-
Makes sense. I forgot to mention that each audience type will have it's own blog. Is it okay to house more than one blog under a single domain? Thanks for the feedback, guys!
-
What you are describing sounds like a mess to maintain. Three potential sites? If you're interested in usability, create one site and build it so it speaks to the personas you're targeting. Like bstone said, build one and put all your effort behind that site. By splitting up the sites, you will be doubling the effort and neither will reach their full potential. In some cases you will even be competing against yourself.
-
My suggestion would be to stay with one site, and set up pages or categories within your site to address different audiences. Building more than one site will require you to do backlinking and social channel strategies for each one. Build the mother ship and point everything there. Good examples to follow are Amazon, Walmart (Who has recently jumped into the rankings over the last few years).
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
-
Is anyone aware of stats stating how many people abandon pages the deeper they get in a site?
For example, let's say someone enters via a landing page, and instead of having a form there is a button to a form. What percentage of people will click the button and fill out the form vs if the form was right there on the page? Basically, I am trying to figure out what percentage of users do websites lose for every click a user makes on the site.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Firestarter-SEO0 -
Breadcrumbs for ecommerce site
We are doing a major overhaul on our site, and we have some questions about URLs, breadcrumbs and ecommerce. Currently, a product can reside in multiple categories, and can have multiple URLs based on how a user navigates to the page. We handle this via canonicals, but it's awful for SEO on many levels. O-U-C-H. The main issue is that a product can reside in multiple categories. At this point, Plan A for our overhaul is that a product URL is always going to be www.domain.com/product-name-sku.html/. Neat and clean, and avoids end-user confusion if they navigate to the product through a category that doesn't match the URL. Plan B: We can anchor a product to a category or subcategory, (www.domain.com/category-name/subcategory-name/product-name-sku.html) but we think that this cuts down on usability as users can navigate to a product through different categories, and the URL may not match the user's navigation. Based on how Google has devalued URLs for ranking purposes, I don't think that there is much of an SEO advantage to Plan B. Am I wrong? A product can show up in multiple categories - for example: www.domain.com/womens-clothing/ www.domain.com/womens-clothing/dresses/ www,domain.com/womens-clothing/dresses/maxidresses/ Category breadcrumbs take care of themselves. What is the best practice to handle the breadcrumb on the product page considering that there are multiple paths a user can take to a product? Options: 1. The breadcrumb on the product page dynamically changes based on how the user navigates to the page. The URL is always fixed as per above, but we change the breadcrumb based on the session. ex: Product: Black Ruffled MuuMuu Home > Womens Clothing > Black Ruffled MuuMuu Home > Womens Clothing > Dresses > Black Ruffled MuuMuu We would be showing Google different breadcrumbs based on how the bot navigates to the page. Are there any issues with this from an SEO perspective as it would seem to provide the better user experience? 2. The breadcrumb on a product page is always fixed. We anchor a product to a category or subcategory and the breadcrumb is always the same no matter how a user navigates to the product. This is simpler from a development perspective, and we are always showing the same breadcrumb to Google. IMHO, this is not as good for usability. ex: Breadcrumb is always: Home > Womens Clothing > Dresses > Black Ruffled MuuMuu regardless of how a user navigates to it. Which way would our ecommerce experts recommend?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | AMHC0 -
Question regarding eCommerce sites, relative URLs and secuirty certificates
We recently installed a new SSL certificate on an ecommerce site. Our IT Director is insisting that all pages on the site must be coded in such a way so that the address bar maintains a green background when a visitor is navigating the site after navigating to a secure page or logging in. I have worked on many ecommerce sites and never has this been an issue. Amazon does not use the green bar....but they are Amazon. In order for this to work, he is insisting that all internal URLs be coded as relative instead of absolute. How bad is this for SEO or does it really not matter that much? How crucial is it for trust and security? Opinions welcome!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | danatanseo0 -
Is it better to get a new site instead of maintaining a category? I'm stuck.
If you had a website "Food for Dogs" and: Food for German shepherds was improving in search traffic & conversions Snack Food for German shepherds had no change and never resulted in conversions but resulted in many leads for #1 Food for Poodles was unchanged but improving conversions Here's the kicker... Food Container for Dogs was super high traffic but with no conversions or any activity to other categories Would you redirect "food container for dogs" to a different site and delete that tab from the original site completely? It's still related but does not offer any $ value or leads to any of the other categories. Just note that we have a different interest in this category that will support the other categories at one time, but not any time soon. We also have a major group on LinkedIN that's grown to thousands of members for the "food container for dogs" category. On top of it all, the "food container for dogs" has been increasing in rank on Google for several keyphrases to positions 2-5 (nationally) Other important question: Would keeping "food container for dogs" influence the ranking of the other keywords? (by dilution of the site's PR or any other reason?)
Conversion Rate Optimization | | HMCOE0 -
A very pertinent .me TLD vs. a longer, less pertinent .com domain?
Hey folks, John here, first-time poster. I have a dilemma I suspect you folks have already have an opinion on, but I'm a bit stuck. I think i have two basic options for choosing a domain name with the format of : 1. I can nab a .me with a very smooth, brandable, and pertinent/convertible and memorable domain name; 2. I can get a more obtuse sounding, less pertinent, lengthy, and less memorable .com domain. This issue is getting the click in the SERP. Assuming the same ranking and meta description, will the smooth .me suffer worse than the rather awkward and long .com? Is it your opinion that all other things remaining equal, will a .me suffer demonstrably over a .com Also, I'm not terribly concerned with folks remembering its a .me or a .com for search purposes, but should i be concerned for email purposes? Many thanks for your input!!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | juanzo0070 -
One Domain or Four?
Hi, We are coming to a bit of a crossroads at our company. Our current website www.revolutioninc.co.uk is ranking half decently in some of our main keywords and is moving in the correct direction. However. There is talk of us now producing a different website for each of our services Web Design, Graphic Design, Marketing and Print. I think I see the benefits of doing 4 seperately in terms of bounce rate probably improving, being able to produce a more concentrated amount of content per site, etc. We have a meeting on it tomorrow and I do have a good few key points to discuss regarding the advantages. Initially however, does anybody here have an opinion of the potential pitfalls/benefits of following this route. I'm thinking also in regards to the direction google is heading. Any opinion is appreciated, good or bad, as I want to put as informed decision as possible across.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Revolution_Inc0 -
14,000+ links a to one site - is this a problem?
First, thanks to those who have helped me before. Second, according to Google Webmaster there are about 14,765 external links to my site. According to Open Site Explorer I have 22. So a couple of questions: 1. Why such a discrepancy? 2. Of the 14,765 links shown in Google Webmaster 14,665 are all from one place and all link to my home page. The site is interiordesignproductfinder.com. In August of this year I bought a sponsorship there. There are several of these sponsors so which show up on a rotating basis. Will having 14,765 links all of a sudden showing up be grounds for some type of a Google downgrade? Why are there 14, 765 links instead of just one. Is a new link created every time our sponsorship rotates to the page? Another thing, in the past couple of months our conversions have dropped significantly. we average about 180 visits a day with a 50% bounce rate. Is there anything obvious thatt might have caused this drop? Thanks for any insights. Don www.uniquegiftsanddecor.com
Conversion Rate Optimization | | uniquegifts-2778790 -
Ideal product page conversion/retention rate for eCommerce sites
Hi SEOmoz-ers, I was wondering if anyone has data regarding product page abandonment rate (% of potential customers that leave the site after seeing product pages) for websites like Overstock, REI or Zappos? As you may know the above mentioned sites do an exceptional job with product pages. It would be helpful to know what some of the leaders in this space are achieving in terms of conversion rate. What is your personal opinion about this? Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kush_VMI
Kush0