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
-
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
Is there any significant benefit to creating online directory listings that only provide nofollow links to our domain?
Is there any significant benefit to creating online directory listings that only provide nofollow links to our domain? For context, whilst doing link gap analysis I've found our competitors are listed on local government directories such as getsurrey.co.uk and miltonkeynes.co.uk. Whilst these aren't seen as spam directories, it's still highly unlikely we'll receive much traffic through them. The links they provide to our domain have the nofollow tag. So I wonder whether there's any other benefit to investing the time in creating these listings? Would be interested to hear your thoughts Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Opera-Care1 -
If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Hi, all please tell me. If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sourav60 -
Benefit of getting more then one link from a site?
Hi Guys, Is there any benefit (purely for SEO - link building) to getting more than one link from a domain if you already have 1? From my understanding, even if you had 100 links from a domain, that really counts as 1 for link authority. So from this, i don't see much point in getting more then 1 link. Is this a right assumption? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wozniak650 -
Are We Doing Link Building Right? Do Certain Links Actually Matter?
I've been thinking about this as I go through my daily link building activities for clients. Do we really know as much as we hope/think we do about how Google values inbound links, which links actually matter, and how much these link signals play into rankings? For example, does Google REALLY value the fact that a business is paying to sponsor a local sports team, or to join a local chamber? For local businesses, link building is rather difficult because they don't necessarily have the resources or ability to implement ongoing Content Marketing initiatives to earn links naturally. How can we be sure that the things we recommend actually make a difference? I had my family real estate business featured in almost a dozen articles as expert sources, with links from authoritative sites like Realtor.com and others. Does Google distinguish between a profile link on a site like Realtor.com vs. being featured as an expert source on home page news? Just second guessing a lot of this today. Anyone can to share thoughts and insights?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Drip Feeding Free Top 10 Blog Sites for Link Building?
Is it a good move to pick 10 free blogging sites to build links. Like drip feeding them. Let's say 10 blogging sites irrespective of its a sub-domain as we get in wordpress or a sub-folder blog as we get in livejournal. Now adding articles related to my money website on those blogs newly created & building links from them. Then drip feeding them by putting 1 article a month at regular intervals with anchor as links in each of them. Do you think its a good move?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?
Hi everyone, I've searched the Q&A section, and also Google, for about the past hour and couldn't find a clear answer on this. When inbound links point to a page that no longer exists, thus producing a 404 Error Page, is link equity/domain authority lost? We are migrating a large eCommerce website and have hundreds of pages with little to no traffic that have legacy 301 redirects pointing to their URLs. I'm trying to decide how necessary it is to keep these redirects. I'm not concerned about the page authority of the pages with little traffic...I'm concerned about overall domain authority of the site since that certainly plays a role in how the site ranks overall in Google (especially pages with no links pointing to them...perfect example is Amazon...thousands of pages with no external links that rank #1 in Google for their product name). Anyone have a clear answer? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
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