Multiple Sites Vs. Single Site

[PewLaw]

We're a growing law firm looking into expanding into different practices of law. The question we're running into is should we create new sites for our different practice areas or add them to our current site?

If we create multiple sites we have to divide our linking building efforts, but if we maintain everything under a single domain will be harder to be considered an "expert" on each section of law and get ranked well in each category?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[PewLaw]

Thank you for the fantastic advice gentlemen!

[Chris.Menke]

Lawrence, it won't be harder to show you're an expert with a single domain vs. two domains.  Remember, it's not to Google that you have to show your expertise, it's to your audience. Google recognizes that your audience sees you as an expert when they share, comment and link to your content.  Now, wrangle all them lawyers up and keep 'em all on one domain--and tell them to invest in good writers, it'll be worth it.

[Asher]

Let me start out by saying the answer below is PERSONAL PREFERENCE:

I would keep everything in one site and separate by menu items and sub menu items.  I assume that the content won't change as much unless the law changes.  This will make your seo pushes more efficient and make your domain more of an authority as well as the potential to have several niche categories connect to you (contextual).

However, this would be a long term strategy that would not yield immediate results, so you have to question whether or not you need immediate results/is your website currently bring business, or are you willing to wait for the website to start converting.

I hope that helps somewhat with the decision making process.

[Mike.Goracke]

You are correct in saying that you would have to divide your link building efforts if you have multiple sites. If you use subdomains, you would get some of the value of linking across all of your sites; however, I don't think that would be good necessarily for your example.

I would suggest that you have landing pages specific to each category of law, then subpages under each landing page that are pertinent to that specific category.

For instance, you could have a Family Law page, which would then have subpages of Divorce, Child Custody, Child Support, Adoption, etc. You could still very well rank well for each of your categories and subcategories.

I would think that your clients would think you were experts in each of your category pages, but I am not too familiar with lawyering

Hope this helps.

Mike