Creating 20+ websites with links back to central site

[Webrevolve]

Hey guys,

A client of ours owns an IT company with 20+ locations across the UK. He is looking for a solution to provide each of their 20+ locations with a page or website that they can manage themselves that links directly back to the main site.

His idea is to create 20+ one or two page websites that could all link back to the main central site - aiding the possibility of ranking well for locally-based terms.

At the moment, we have a page for each of the 20+ locations on the main site. However, the client wants to give his franchisees complete control over their web presence.

Would a setup like this work? Would it be logical to have 20+ websites (likely to follow a very similar format) all pointing to one central website? Would we have to "no-follow" links back to main site in order to show we aren't trying to manipulate page rank?

Would creating sub folders on the main site be a better option for each of the 20+ locations?

Any feedback appreciated!

[Goulart]

I would agree also. Creating Sub-Folders is the best way to go.

I would add just a few quick points:

1. Include schema.org geocoordates to your pages: http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates 
2. Sign up for Yelp if it is applicable for your client's business locations. 
3. Make sure your Meta Description for each page mentions a city/town name.
4. Pretty simple one but more related to the site overall - Setting Geographical targeting in Google webmaster
5. Sign up for Google+ Local (mentioned above), Bing Places and Yahoo Local
6. If your business is related to Yelp, your most likely able to handle other review sites. Submit the business to reviews sites which will help generate more exposure for the brand. The reviews can also be used in Google - increase CTR% (if you have good reviews)

Good Luck!

[TriforceMedia]

Agreed. Building out sub-folders is a better strategy in the long-run because your client will be gaining more authority on their main domain as a result. A tip for those landing pages would be to embed a google map with the complete business address along with links to local resources.

[CleverPhD]

Creating sub folders is better as you do not have to worry about your 20 web sites looking like some sort of link farm. Plus, you build the overall brand with the main website.  That said, you do not want 20 identical pages for each location on the main website.  You would want to have unique and original information on each location page about that location, who works there, what services do they provide, etc etc.

If you want to give the client more control, why not setup each of the location pages so that a location could login and update the information.  It would be just like you can update your Google+ Local profile, you could even setup a login etc.

That said, if you give the client control of the listing/page/website then you run into the issue that client will often do a poor job of providing good information, and/or mess up your SEO if you are trying to get those pages ranked.

I would suggest a hybrid solution where you setup the pages for each location, even interview each location and gather up the information that is needed to really make those location pages information rich.  You can then take input from that location and build your pages with that information.  If there are some small edits or updates that a location needs, you can make those updates (or not) as you would still maintain editorial and SEO control.

I have managed a site with thousands of locations and we found that use of the folders worked really well.  We actually gave users access to update location profiles, but often they would put information that was frankly, poorly written.  Throw out all the SEO points, some of these "self edited" location profiles did not make me want to visit that location as the copy was so poor.  It was not until we took more control of the content on location pages that we were able to get a good balance between original content from the locations and well written page with an eye to SEO.