How to handle a future company expansion?

[net66]

One of my clients is looking to start a new company and they are thinking of SEO right from the get go. While this is great for me there are a few issues that I have never really encountered before.

For instance, my client knows that she will be expanding into a different city in the future but wants to generate local traffic to start with. She will initially start with CITY-A before moving to CITY-B one year later.

Which of the following would be a better solution:

1)      Have CITY-A targeted on the root domain for one year, build links and grow the site for CITY-A then create two sub domains in one year targeting CITY-A and CITY-B (ie. CITY-A.companyname.com and CITY-B.companyname.com), then make the root domain a generic company site with no mention of location (or mentions of both locations). . .

2)      Create the two sub domains now and begin with CITY-A.companyname.com and have the root domain be a general overview of the company and our services without being location specific.

3)      Create the root domain (companyname.com) and have that target CITY-A and keep it targeting the initial city, then create a sub-domain in a year to target CITY-B

I keep going between these solutions and seem to have hit a mental block.

What are your thoughts? Any other ideas are more that welcome!

Thanks,

Net66

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Net66,

Thanks for the further information. So - like an SEO or design firm, your client will basically have to make efforts to get as far as she can with organic. If she was actually an SEO, Google doesn't show those in Local anyway, but if she is competing with local businesses with physical addresses, no matter what she does, she is unlikely to be able to outrank them, but hopefully the work you do with her will enable her to come up below them. Half a loaf is better than none! Good luck.

Miriam

[net66]

Hi Miriam,

The run on paragraph was fine; I was definitely able to read it.

Her business is virtual in the sense that she does not have a physical address and that 50% of her work comes from all over the country. Much like a web designer or SEO some of her work can be done online without meeting the clients.

However, some of her work requires being local to her client. She does a lot of work for events and charities, in which she goes to the event or company to take photos, produce documentation and designs. She tries to offer an in house design and marketing service while working for her own company.

I hope that makes sense?

Essentially, if she was an SEO she would spend a few days a month / week with her client in their office. So while her service has no physical address, it is important that she is local to her client.

Net66

P.S. Sorry for the late reply, we don’t work on the weekends J

Net66

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Net66,

I'm so sorry my earlier reply posted as one giant run-on paragraph. We've been having a small issue with formatting in the forum. Hope you were able to make sense of it.

As you have guessed, the fact that the client has no actual physical address is going to handicap them every step of the way in the marketing process. Google's definition of a local business is that it has a physical address and local area code phone number and does business face-to-face with its clients. Any other scenario is going to be considered virtual instead of local.

I've just re-read your original post and confess I am confused - in what way is your client's business local at all? If what she is doing is totally web-based with no in person contact with clients, why would she be seeking local traffic in the first place? I want to understand the situation correctly. Feel free to provide further details.

Miriam

[net66]

Hi Miriam, thanks for the reply!

As we are in the UK state is not really an issue. But as you are based in SF and I'm quite acquainted with the West Coast I would say that is the close to having the two locations be Los Angeles and San Fran. Obviously the distance is closer for us, but that is due to the fact that we are a much smaller country.

My client is actually a freelance graphic designer. So they won't have an office to do the usual listings such as Google Places (they are opposed to using their home address for obvious reasons).

As their service is internet based she can work anywhere and wants to target the two cities to gain a larger client base. She is quite well known in her current city, so she should have no issue finding work there while the SEO takes effect.

I think I will make a generalized site targeting City A (San Fran) then when she wants to widen her net, change the main pages to reflect City B (Los Angeles) and add two sub directories for each city. As she works for a lot of charities and events finding unique city based content shouldn't be too difficult.

My only staggering point may be her lack of physical address.

What would you suggest to get around that? Her keyphrases are very competitive and while she is getting work in through other methods, it is always nice to rank well

Net66

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Net66! Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. Very nice to have a client who is thinking of SEO in advance. If you are dealing with a company with less than 10 locations, it's actually pretty simple to optimize for all of them. I have some questions: 1. Is Company A going to be corporate headquarters with Company B being a subsidiary office, or will both companies be of equal value? 2. Are the 2 cities going to be in the same state? How close are they to one another? Answers to those might help to clarify the situation a little, as specially question 1. Now, until the client is actually moved into building B, local optimization can only be fully done for Company A. So, yes, it makes sense to begin with a well optimized website for Company A. You wouldn't want to confuse the issue by publishing information about the second business until the client is capable of verifying her address there. When the expansion happens, since you are only dealing with 2 cities, you can reasonably optimize a few of the main pages to reflect the second office (homepage, about page, contact page, as well as the footer, tags, etc.) And, of course, you will be doing her Local SEM for the new city, getting her business listed in Google Places et al. That will likely represent the beginning of your work, and the next steps will likely be to start developing unique and distinct content to showcase the two different offices. As I don't know what the business model is, I'm afraid I can't give creative suggestions, but you will need to take a creative approach to begin building out separate content for the two cities on the website. You can choose to do this on subdomains, or you can simply do it with subdirectories. Matt Cutts has said that Google sees no difference between the two. If this were my client, I'd simply use subdirectories because they tend to be a lot easier to webmaster. I hope this gets you off to a good start, but please feel free to return with further details. Miriam