Hosted content vs Dedicated website (for large piece of content)
-
There is one question that keep bugging us and for which we are looking for a logical answer – to put it short, in which context(s) is it preferable to publish original content on a company website vs on a dedicated external platform with its own URL?
To give a little more details: we an education company that provides languages course abroad and that functions like a specialised travel agency. Each trip is very specific – it depends on people's language level, objectives, budget, etc. – so we provide tailor-made advice for each of our students. Our site is not an e-commerce site, and a typical call-to-action is a request for a 1-to-1 interview with one of our agents, or a quote request for a language trip project. The top conversion for us is an enrolment for a language course abroad.
We have a corporate websites structure where we have 1 website per locale where we operate, which means 14 websites in 7 different languages. We produce smaller pieces of content for these websites in a dedicated section – the rest of the website being mostly a presentation of our products, services and destinations – but here we intend to create a very large Quiz which will be based on multiple audio files. The content will be translated into multiple languages (likely 10 different languages) and will require some rather heavy development. We intend to add sections for scoreboards, stats, a log-in section (probably Facebook), etc.
This sounds to us like something we should host on a specific URL, but then how can we make the most of the SEO benefits that we will (hopefully) get with such content? We plan to have an about section where we explain a little bit who we are, where we will probably link back to our corporate websites, but of course we want our project to live for itself and to be as far from commercial as possible – while still making the most of the SEO benefits.
How can we do this in the most subtle / logical way? Would it be better to host our Quiz on our corporate domains?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Maëlle
-
Hello John,
Thanks again for your help – it is much clearer now. We don't want to trick our users, but we do want them to use the piece of content we have created without being overwhelmed by the brand. What we're probably going to so is host the content on our corporate URL but create a whole new design – much less branded – for that content.
-
On your comment on generic advice as I am not 100% familiar with your brand strategy accordingly I do not like to give "hard advice". There are too many variables.
That said I will do the best with what provided.
In short there are zero SEO tactical advantages to separating content from brand. Perhaps if the content site is a trick to get someone thinking that the branded site is independent and then refer to your branded domain - about the only time I would consider or recommend it. Is that the case? Hence there are almost zero advantages to setting up a separate site. Site maintenance is hard work, and the doubling of SEO efforts foolhardy. Why have two houses if you only live in one? Unless of course you are rich and it is of no consequence.
If I was advising you I would suggest it is not even worth considering. The domain authority for https://www.esl.co.uk is 25 - which is weak for a specialized site. In short you are not rich enough to afford the second house, the main domain is a straw house at present. If the domain authority was 60+ I might be with you. First thing I worry about is susceptibility to competition.
Given such a low domain authority for the prime domain I would be working hard in improving my link profile and domain authority. Every marketing dollar matters. Focus on building https://www.esl.co.uk into a dominant power - at present however a strong competitor coming into your space would have a powerful impact on search - as it would be easy to outrank. That said great looking site, well optimized from my quick look - needs some strong linking work.
Hopefully not to blunt and a little clearer but happy to answer.
-
Hi John,
Thank you for your answer; unfortunately I am not completely satisfied with it if I may say, as I am not looking for generic SEO resources / responses here, but rather a tactical answer on the advantages and disadvantages we could find in detaching our content from our brand.
The website that should be considered for this is www.esl.co.uk – sorry I was not going to write URLs here, so please do remove it if it has to be removed – and the 13 other versions, all hosted on local URLs. The site you mentioned above is our group website.
-
Yes.
Ok on a purely technical aspect in relation to SEO it is better to include the new content in a corporate site. I assume the content is to be marketed heavily and hence on a worst case base you build up some backlinks and and a bit of domain authority for your corporate website. If the content succeeds well then the ripple effect to the other sites will be profound.
On a brand new domain to start from scratch - new domain, no history and no backlinks is a far harder task, but certainly not un-achievable. Personally I believe you should try and limit new domains as practically it increases your required SEO output in this case by 1/15th. So just to keep level you need to work an extra 3 hours each week with a new domain...
I just had a quick look at https://www.esl-education.org which i assume is the parent site. What you could do - which will help your seo generally is review your title tags and H1. This moz article is highly relevant.
https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag
You will get some quick uplift with the right keywords. Hope that assists.
-
Hi John,
Thank you for your response. In fact, the 14 domains have similar content (our language courses portfolio) but this new domain would be just the quiz – so the content would be completely different. If we were to get a new domain, it would be one without our brand name (unlike the 14 other ones) but rather with our project's name. It would be a multi-language website, from which I would point to our various corporate websites from a section in each language.
Does this makes sense?
-
To be clear you are creating one large piece of content that cuts across all 14 domains (as distinct from previous content) - hence you are questioning whether you should consider adding a 15th domain. If this is incorrect let me know.
If correct then to optimize SEO benefits it should be hosted on a current or your primary domain - not create a new domain. Adopting that course there are a myriad of discussions to be had on how to effect same on a current or primary domain. Ensure content not duplicated etc. optimize benefits.
So the short answer answer would be host on a current domain. Though I add I am unfamiliar with the sites or consequences so if the primary site where the "content" is to be hosted is german this may upset the english visitors...many variables you need to consider - the variables maybe overpowering and require the 15th domain but I would try an steer clear of the 15th if possible, certainly if a once off.
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
-
Rebrandly vs. Bitly?
I want an alternative to Bitly (because we must change our short domain (BSD) and Bitly Support for its free service is excruciatingly bad; I'd gladly pay). Rebrandly appears to be a good alternative at $100. per year. Can anyone recommend Rebrandly and speak to its strengths and weaknesses vs. Bitly? Thank you. Rick
Branding | | Knockleigh0 -
Content Advice for SEO Newbies
Hi all, I've been asked to put together a presentation as part of an internal series for marketers within the company that don't know much about SEO, but want to learn the basics and contribute. My topic for this one is on-page SEO/content marketing's role in SEO. I have lots of ideas for this already, but I thought I'd turn to the Moz forum to get some feedback and help me prioritize the points I hit. So, if you could give SEO newbies working on content for a company site, blog, etc. just one piece of advice, what would it be? Looking forward to seeing your responses. Thanks, Andrew
Branding | | SafeNet_Interactive_Marketing0 -
Tips and advice for startup website launch
Hi guys I'm looking for tips and advice to help prevent a startup website launch from embarrassment or disaster. Couple of examples I have so far are: Test contact and download forms Check website for duplicate content, lorem ipsum and missing content Check page load speed What would be your best advice/tip(s) be? Thanks Anthony @Anthony_Mac85 P.S. Just to be clear, I'm not looking for advice on how to growth hack a startup website launch.
Branding | | Tone_Agency0 -
Do you think its ethical to use your personal google authorship for outsourced content?
I routinely outsource nicely written content but never use my google authorship for those articles. Should I be adding my google authorship to those articles? Or would that be unethical and violate googles TOS?
Branding | | TShak0 -
Duplicate Content and Indexing issues
Hey guys, I have a client whom has an existing site www.currentdomain.ie and we have created a new site with a new domain name www.newdomain.ie. They do not wish for it to be redirected. They wish for two sites to have the exact same content just with different logos. So for example if you search for current domain the search results present to you www.currentdomain.ie as the number 1 search listing and the same if you searched for their new domain. I'm trying to understand how google might index the two sites if side wide canonical tag were implemented on either of the sites to get over the duplicate content issue. How would google index the brand name of each site if one site canocilised? I don't want to encourage this client with this idea as it appears to be nonsensical but I thought I should first understand fully what the SEO implications might be. Thanks Rob
Branding | | daracreative0 -
Video Hosting and SEO
Generally speaking self hosting of video is good for SEO. But if a client has a weekly/daily webshow that they will be launching (from scratch), how should we handle the hosting? Is onsite still better? Should we use Youtube to start and gain traction and than swtich once we have built viewership or Should we use self hosted video and than post it to Youtube at a later date?
Branding | | greenergrassmarketing0 -
Unique Content around GEO targets
Is there a way to produce SEO, google friendly Unique Content to ad to long tail pages, that will provide user value? Emample: 1800medigap.com we want to rank for keywords that are geo specific: Medicare Supplemant Insurance Balitmore Maryland Denver Colorado Medigap Insurance ......
Branding | | jdcline0 -
.com vs .ca
I have a domain name in mind for my web development company, but unforunatly the .com is already taken. Fortunatly for me though I live in Canada, and the .ca is available. What I want to know is should I go ahead and register my desired .ca or should I continue to look and find a domain name that I can aquire the .ca and the .com ?
Branding | | VebianWebandMobileDevelopment0