Creating 20+ websites with links back to central site
-
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!
-
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!
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Weird Site is linking to our site and links appears to be broken
I have got a lot of weird links indexed from this page: http://kzs.uere.info/files/images/dining-table-and-2-upholstered-chairs.html When clicking the link it shows 404. Also, the spam score is huge. What do you guys suggest to do with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Miniorek
Could it be done by somebody to get our rankings down or domain penalized? Best Regards
Mike & Alex0 -
How i get link to my website
hi i'm very new in seo want to have links to my website:www.warningbroker.com how i can get links to my website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marketing660 -
Is it posible to improve site rankings working only with an other site?
Hi everyone, i´ll try to explain a situation is happening to me, i´m goint to try to explain the case (im writing the sites without links for explication purposes. Site 1: Adventurerooms Site 2: Adventureroomsmallorca Site 3: Adventureroomsmadrid (the new site) What happen is that at first there was only Adventurerooms and Adventureroomsmallorca, Adventurerooms was for Madrid and linked to the one in Mallorca too, was kind of giving the information for Madrid but in first page split with a link to Mallorca. In a new strategy we create Adventureroomsmadrid for Madrid, and leave Adventurerooms for Spain (with links to Adventureroomsmadrid and Adventureroomsmallorca. We redirect the info for Madrid in Adventurerooms to Adventureroomsmadrid with 301 redirections. We work during this 3 months in Adventureroomsmadrid making content in the blog, and improving (now Adventureroomsmadrid is Moz 15 (perhaps even more), and Adventurerooms is Moz 10. Surprising Adventurerooms is getting better in its search rankings, even when we took away content from it and even without working well. Adventureroomsmadrid is also improving but not as much as Adventurerooms (i know that is a new site, only 3 months), but Adventurerooms gets better results with no content and only DA of 10. I hope i´ve explain the case with my english so the question is: "Is it posible to improve site rankings working only with an other site?" Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webtematica0 -
Wise or cluttery for a website? Should our "out of the mainstream" of popular products be listed on our site? (older/discontinued, umfamiliar brands, parts to products, etc...)
For instance, should we list replacement parts for a music stand? Or parts for a trumpet, like a valve button? To some, this seems like a cluttery thing to do. I suppose another way to ask would be, "Should we only list the high quantity selling items that are well branded and that everyone shops for, and leave the rest off the website for instore customers only to buy?" (FYI: Our website focus is for our local market mainly, and we're not trying to take on the world per-say, but if the world wants in, that's cool too.) (My thought here is that if a customer walks into our retail store and they request an odd ball part or item... we go hunting for it and find it for them. Or perhaps another Music Store needs a part? To me, it's ALL for sale,... right? Our retail depth, should be reflected in our online presence as much as possible,... correct? I'd personally choose to list the odd balls on our site, just as if a customer was standing in the store. Another side thought is, if we only list the main stream products... we are basically lessening our content (which could affect our rankings) and would be inviting ourselves into a higher competitive market place because we wouldn't be saying anything different than what most other music store sites out there say. I believe we need to show off our uniqueness,... and product depth (of course w/good SEO & content too) is really kinda it, aside of course also from good expert people and a large facility. But perhaps that's a wrong way to look at it?) Thanks, Kevin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kevin_McLeish0 -
Does link juice pass along the URL or the folders? 10yr old PR 6 site
We have a website that is ~10yrs old and a PR 6. It has a bunch of legitimate links from .edu and .gov sites. Until now the owner has never blogged or added much content to the site. We have suggested that to grow his traffic organically he should add a worpress blog and get agressive with his content. The IT guy is concerned about putting a wordpress blog on the same server as the main site because of security issues with WP. They have a bunch of credit card info on file. So, would it be better to just put the blog on a subdomain like blog.mysite.com OR host the blog on another server but have the URL structure be mysite.com/blog? I have tried to pass as much juice as possible. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonsixtwo0 -
On-site links
Hi everybody, There's a lot of information about getting sitewide backlinks, but so few about on-site optimization. Is there a maximum of links to put on a page ? Is there a maximum of link that a page should receive ? etc ... ? So, what is the optimal strategy ? And I'm only concerned about on-page and on-site link, not backlinks commming from other sites. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidPilon0 -
Google giving me only partial site links?
Hi Guys, My site is #1 ranked for the term "waiting till marriage," but Google only gives me partial site links. See "Forums - Articles - Questions - Videos" links in attached screenshot. How do I get the full, page-dominating, mini-description-having site links? Any suggestions? Note: I've got a ton of content and decent traffic, but I haven't put much time into developing back links yet. I'm a php developer, but I'm new to professional-level SEO. Any help would be hugely appreciated. Also, sorry about the inflammatory nature of the site. It's not a preachy site; it's just a support group. Hope it doesn't offend. partial-sitelinks.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeAM270