Consolidate Local sites to one larger site

[EasyStreet]

I am a partner in a real estate company that operates in 10 different markets across the country.  Each of these markets has it's own individual domain.  My question is should we consolidate each of these markets into one domain that services all markets?  What would we possibly gain or lose from an organic traffic standpoint?

In some of our more established markets (Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Tampa, Orlando and Charlotte) our organic traffic accounts for 50-60% of our total traffic.  In some of our newer markets (Denver, Phoenix, San Diego) it accounts for less than 15%.

We do operate under two different brand names.  EasyStreet Realty and Highgarden Real Estate. EasyStreet has been around since 2000 with most of our Highgarden sites only up for 6-24 months. Another question is we are considering converting all EasyStreet divisions to Highgarden.  I am a little reluctant to do so, since most of our organic traffic is coming from our EasyStreet sites.  Thoughts?

You can find links to all our sites at www.easystreetrealty.com or www.highgarden.com

Thank you in advance for your insight.

[EasyStreet]

Thank you Miriam.  We have switched from one brand to another (EasyStreet to Highgarden) in a couple of our markets.  We implemented a 301 redirect strategy for those sites and saw very little effect on our organic traffic.

Thanks again for your input.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi EasyStreet,

What makes this a tough call is the sheer size of the company with markets in different states. In nearly all cases, it's better to think of brand first - by having all your websites assets on a single domain, then everything you do on that site for all of your markets is going to build the strength and authority of your brand. For example, McDonald's has a main corporate website you can search if you're looking for a specific location. They do have other sites for other purposes, but their locations across the US are all represented by a single site. You could definitely call them a strong brand, and it's a marketing example to follow, even if you're a plumber with just 3 locations.

It sounds to me, from what you've written, that right now, your firm is in a transitional period trying to determine whether to consolidate two brands into one, possibly. I would get this matter settled before you start changing websites, so that if you then further decide to consolidate multiple sites into one, you're going forward either with one or two clear brands.

Should you decide to consolidate, the main thing is going to be to make certain you have studied and implemented redirect protocols from the old domains to the main new one. Unfortunately, this is not my area of expertise. I am going to ask others to chime in with more skill in this area, but in sum, it's generally considered a best practice to go with a single site, but there can be nuances when dealing with a multi-state company that may not make that the best fit for every scenario.

[ccbamatx]

Here are some posts that I found useful when asking the same question:

• http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-ranking-a-business-with-multiple-locations.html

• http://moz.com/community/q/local-seo-how-to-handle-multiple-business-at-same-address

• http://searchengineland.com/how-to-rank-outside-of-your-physical-location-in-google-places-159043

• Best of luck...