2 websites, 1 business... How should I proceed?

[Gab-Tonik]

Hi MOZ Folks,

I am looking for SEO advices! I have my own business call : Tonikwebstudio.com... and recently, we bought a other company called Olawebstudio.com... So 2 websites for 1 business. How should I proceed to optimize my Local Seo? I think I have two choices...

1- I make referal links on Ola customer websites that redirect to Ola(+referal link) and then to Tonik.

OR

2- I make referal links on Ola customer websites that redirect to Tonik directly... and then, I delete Ola web site...

Any advices?

[Kenn_Gold]

To add to what Miriam said, as I am in the process of handling a merger for a client right now and am dealing with this same issue.

In my client's case, they are building a new website that represents the merged company, migrating the content from both sites into one (in many cases content on both sites is redundant so we eliminate/consolidate some) and then we will use 301 redirects mapped from the old site content to the new site content.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi There!

The decision here is whether you wish to run 2 completely independent companies or if you are planning to consolidate everything into one company.

If the former, and you are having in-person transactions with your customers, then you would establish the unique physical locations of the business on the website and create unique sets of citations for them on the major local business data platforms. This is predicated on you having a unique name, address and phone number for each business - as well as a unique website.

If the latter, then you'll need to bring all of your assets under one roof, merging Tonik and Ola into a single business and establishing a single website for this merged company. Then, if you have face-to-face transactions with your customers, you can build out your citations based on the name, address, phone number and website of this company.