One company - 2 websites

[maxweb]

One of our clients decided to launch a 2nd website to market specific products and services that they provide. The trouble is, they have the same address, phone number and have a similar name. Whilst we have had some success and both websites are on page 1 for their primary keywords, I have a bad feeling that they may have hit a glass ceiling.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to perform local SEO?

[jnfere]

My firm uses several websites. When I first came in house there were a lot of sites, but I took them down because of the content quality at the time. I am slowly building them back up.  I find that specific area websites can be very useful for pointing ads or specific campaigns, since many people want to know just about X concept I am very careful not to reproduce content and not to try to hide that the sites are owned by the same company.

I hesitated to bring the sites back up until I got some confirmation from Matt Cutts that having more than one site is fine, as long as you follow good content and other SEO standards. http://www.brafton.com/news/cutts-on-similar-website-content-multiple-domains-duplicate-or-safe

I link between the sites, but in an organic way. I.e. if I have an article on one site that naturally links to another site, I link it.  I also don't have a huge number of sites and don't expect to do so.

[David-Kley]

I agree with what you are saying. The issue is that Google still ranks keyword driven domains, and secondary sites very high in their searches. We personally don't engage in the practice, but it is very frustrating to see these types of actions happening when they clearly are against it, and put webmaster articles out saying it's bad.

Most of the secondary sites are created for this reason, to gain a higher rank, with less effort. Local businesses tend to "gain"  the most from this, as domain names are usually available for yourcityandservicekeyword.com

I don't think it is a wise long term strategy, but anyone who denies that it still works, and often, is kidding themselves. Not being negative, just trying to voice an opinion. Most of the seos set these type of sites up due to a low budget amount from the client. Trying to create a real seo plan and create ongoing dynamic content is almost impossible for a $300-400 client. The seo knows they can register a keyword-driven domain, and after creating a ton of citations, most likely come out on top (especially since the backlinks coming from these will be an exact match for the keyword they want to rank for.)  The clients see this as great, because they get an influx of new leads, but don't understand the damage they do to their brand, or the long term risks involved in a future update.

Don't get me wrong, lol. I'm not arguing with anything you said, and I agree with the items you referenced and quoted 100%. But Google, despite their public perception and webmaster quotes, is not perfect. There is a chance he could get both sites to rank, and rank well. Not with how they are currently set up, but with a lot of work separating the content, and changing one to brand focus and the other to keyword focus, it could work.

Still wouldn't do it tho. She is right. Spend the effort on the main domain you want to rank. You would most likely spend just as much time trying to get both to rank as you would getting one killer site in place, but not have the future risk of a penalty.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Mark,

I think you're right to be concerned. The mutli-site approach is one I pretty much never recommend to local business owners. Google's own John Mueller has clearly stated that Google prefers the single site approach (see: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-one-site-locations-15454.html). As far as Google's rules go, it's not permitted to create a second local listing for a set of products a company vends. That's striclty forbidden, in fact (see: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en).

I've had business owners come to me in this situation and I've had to take a hard line with them and leave it up to them to take my advice or not. I tell them that they are a single company and should be running a single website backed up with a single set of citations for the business (unless they have more than one physical location, in which case, they can build out separate citations for each location). Ideally, the client should:

1. Consolidate his sites into a single site

2. Redirect his old URLs to the authoritative one

3. Clean up any citations that have been built as though this were 2 companies instead of one.

Alternatives:

1. The client can found a new business if his products are different enough to merit the effort of doing so. The new business would need a unique name, address and phone number.

2. If he insists on keeping the second site, all NAP (name, address, phone) should be removed from it as well as all references/links to the main site. He could run a blog on it or something about his industry, but he should not attempt to rank locally with this second site in any way. Content should not be duplicated in any way between the two sites. Once you start explaining this to the client, he may say, "Well then what is the point of the second site, if I can't try to promote it as though it were a second business?" That can be a sort of 'bingo' moment that can help you to help him see that he should really think hard about consolidating.

What I've found over the years is that business owners sometimes take this multi-site approach because they feel it will make them look bigger to Google and help them diversify their rankings. In point of fact, in the local business sphere, it only hampers them. Google wants an accurate representation of the business with a single, consistent set of NAP and a clear, authoritative website. This way, everything the business does goes towards strengthening their brand. The stronger their brand becomes, the easier it will be for them to rank for their various products.

Hope these thoughts are helpful. I'm wishing you luck discussing this with the client. I know it's not always easy:)

[maxweb]

Thanks for the reply. The problem is that it is a local business and looking to rank well for local results.

1. Too late, the domains are pretty close to each other.

2. The content is unique on both websites, but some of the categories and product names are similar

3. Both sites need to rank well for local searches. Using this advice means that the 2nd website will not be able to perform well locally. Am I right in saying that the websites can not effectively co-exist with the same details?

As I say, both websites are on page 1 for their primary keywords but are struggling to get near the top of the page. Is there anything I can do or will Google always treat them as duplicates and hold them back?

[David-Kley]

Here is a few things to watch for with this:

1. Domain name are not closely related
2. Each site has its own unique content. DO NOT have matching pages on each, as Google doesnt take to kindly to that. Even if they don't penalize, they will index the newer version, and the older will be very difficult to get to recover.
3. Link to the local listing only off of one site. I think you will be ok displaying the address on both sites, but get creative with it. Instead of displaying live text, have the address and phone be a jpeg or png. That way, it will not be "crawlable". This isnt the most...legit way of doing it, but if you need to display it on both sites, it will work without fail. This will allow your vistors to see the contact info, and avoid an issue with Google.