How to Host Microsites: Mission Critical or Six of One / Half Dozen of the Other?
-
Hello, fellow Mozzers! Been racking my brain. Thanks for your help on this one!
I am in the process of putting together several microsites for our marketing agency. The sites feature similar theme and design elements, but are focused on delivering a customized industry-specific visitor experience with unique navigation, brand messaging, services, case studies, etc.
I am struggling with whether I should host as entirely separate websites, as subdomains of the parent site, or as separate WP installs in subfolders of the main domain.
I have been leaning toward the sub-folder option to share domain authority and keep our SEO efforts consolidated. But I am also concerned that the microsite "home pages" will underperform as sub-folder pages, versus being an actual home page of a unique domain or sub-domain.
Is this a six-of-one or half-dozen of the other situation, or are there some important considerations I'm missing here?
Thank you for your help here!
-
Happy to help, good luck!
-
Thanks, Dave. Great points. Thanks for the feedback!
-
Thanks, Justin. Good advice. The important thing to me was the ability to deliver unique brand and user experience, including navigation menu, content, colors, logo. I've been putting things together on my own thus far without the technical programming know how, but now that you bring this up, I am sure that my developer will be able to help me build this out under a single theme and install, no problem. Appreciate the thought! Andrew
-
If the main website is in WordPress, I recommend creating a new page template in your existing WP installation, and using that to create your landing pages and microsites.
Adding another subdomain or a separate WordPress install is only going to give you headaches. Analytics, updates, plugins, etc., all get more complicated when you do that. It may seem like a quick fix, but you'd only be making trouble for yourself later.
Better to spend the time up front creating new page templates on your existing WP domain.
Here's an article on creating new page templates: http://codex.wordpress.org/Page_Templates
Here are a couple of articles on creating new sidebars:
-
Hey Alaniz,
I would run the subfolder route for two reasons.
1. Branding. You can leverage all of you brand equity under one domain but still let people know that you specialize in marketing for the listed industries. Your case studies and blog will show you know your stuff. People will probably think each site is a separate business. You will want your customers to know you service other industries so they can (hopefully) refer others. So maybe you do a killer job marketing for the legal side and the client has a buddy in medical and they can easily refer the friend to the one website.
2. SEO time and effort. Starting from scratch on six sites in competitive markets will take some serious time and resources to get them to generate traffic. Focusing on one domain will pass the link equity on to the other pages. I would rather manage one site versus six.
I love seeing strategy questions on here, those are always the tough ones.
-
Hi, Eugene. Thanks for the response. I'll try to explain it better.
I would like to create a website experience that is specific to several sub-specialties of our marketing agency (tech, medical, legal, etc). Each "microsite" has unique brand messaging, navigation, styling, case studies, blog.
I am trying to figure out the best practice for hosting and site architecture. For instance, here are my considerations:
Main Parent Site: www.abcmarketing.com
Separate Sites Option: www.abcmedicalmarketing.com
Sub-domain Option: medical.abcmarketing.com
Sub-Folder Option: abcmarketing.com/medicalThe Sub-folder option seems to be the best way to consolidate efforts and maintain authority for one domain, as you said. But I'm not sure if there are any other considerations that I'm missing here. For instance, will the sub-folder hosted microsites rank as well as if they were hosted and maintained separately? Is there anything that Google will potentially not like about this? Or is this simply and clearly the best way to proceed?
Thanks for your help!
-
Not sure I'm following you, but I don't think it's ever a good idea to have different micro sites hosted all on the same host with the same IP. Why not build up the domain authority for ONE domain. I remember herding Google not liking the new subdomain craze too, but that was just on a podcast. Sorry I don't understand your question better.
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
-
Will you show a case study/live analytics of Moz before and after name change?
so many people are interested these days in changing domains either for branding purposes like you did or some people believe that having an exact match domain will save the day. I believe posting any knowledge you have gained through your fantastic looking analytics system could shed light on a subject so many people seem to be asking about. Some things I would love to know regarding the amount of people that you have either gained or lost through organic search along with your ranking for the term "seo" And other things you guys must be learning along the way as well. I would also like to know your opinion of having a meter of some sort tell us just how many new people type in Moz vs seomoz I tink it would be a great topic for people to learn about branding from as well as a way to show off your new analytics. Fellow Mozers to you agree or not? ( I now see all the little tricks you guys have been putting in our head by never using seo in branding for a long time aside from of course your name) Great job on the transition. Sincerely, Thomas PS. Did Roger get a new coat of paint or did you just take him to the car wash?
Branding | | BlueprintMarketing0 -
Moving Blog from www.topic.domain.com to www.domain.com/blog
Hi Fellow Mozzers, Just started off here on seomoz.org and am super happy to have joined the community! I've recently started a new job as web optimization manager for an education company. There is a lot to do and one of my first tasks is to figure a better strategy for our current blog. I've convinced our management to move our blog from topic.domain.com to domain.com/blog. My research has shown that this is a better strategy so that our blog can receive the DA of our root domain, get more people to click through our site, and even receive more natural searches (PLEASE, someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). Anyway, our blog is currently hosted as a Wordpress blog and we're wondering if it's more worthwhile to build a blog platform ourselves or continue using Wordpress. I am not a technical guy and don't know the backend stuff to make it happen, but my concern is primarily for the optimum search capacity. Also, our bloggers frequently put links to different portions of our website - does this hold any negative SEO value in terms of too much internal linking? I personally wouldn't assume so, but then again I could be wrong. Finally, we also track our main website using Google Analytics- currently, the only tracking we have installed on our blogs is the default provided by Wordpress (yes yes I know, but that's why i'm here -- to fix these weaknesses). I'm assuming we will be able to better track using GA when the switch is made. So, I guess my questions are: (1) Is my research correct in that it's better to have our blog hosted as domain.com/blog over topic.domain.com (2) Are there any best practices in making this switch and/or any negative implications with continuing to use Wordpress or should we build our own platform (we have the internal resources to do so, but would prefer to take the easiest and best route in terms of SEO and community building). (3) Will it still be just as easy to track using GA. Thank you!! Pedram
Branding | | CSawatzky0 -
One writer, multiple brands - optimizing rel=author across several blogs
Our company has a few different brands, each with their own domain and site. These are not microsites intended to drive traffic to a main site; they all have independent e-commerce functions, full product lines, etc. Imagine we run Plumbing Widgets Inc, Kitchen Remodeling Company, and Springfield Countertops. It's not immediately obvious to surfers that one parent company operates all of these brands, and we're fine with that. Considering that it enables us to own a lot of SERP real estate for some money KWs, we're more than fine with it. We'd like to create a blog for each of these sites/brands. Here's where it gets tricky. After doing some reading, I am persuaded that using rel=author will help us with SERP CTR and possibly rankings themselves. I am going to be writing all of the blog content, at least to start. I don't think I want to rel=author myself on all of these discrete blogs, do I? And surface the fact that one person is the head writer for the blogs of all these brands? Creating blogging pseudonyms doesn't seem like a good idea, since part of the value of rel=author is genuine social engagement, and creating social personas that seem genuine is probably more trouble than it's worth. (Not to mention icky and dishonest.) Should I choose a customer service rep or manager for each brand and use their names and social identities (with their permission, obviously)? It seems like that would involve challenges of its own. I've ghostwritten for one business owner before, but this is on a larger, more complex scale. Any insights are appreciated!
Branding | | CMC-SD0 -
Using Multiple Locations for Google Business/Maps
Hey MOZers, I currently work for a company with several other offices in other countries. Is it possible to set-up Google 'Business' and Google 'Maps' pages so when a user in a given country queries 'our business' on either Google 'Search' or Google 'Maps' they will receive the relevant business information for that country. For example, if an internet user in Canada enters a query for 'our business' in Canada (and we have an office in Canada) is there anyway to set up our Google Business page and Google Maps page so that user receives the contact information for the Canada office, rather than the US office? Conversely, if someone in the United States enters a search query for 'our business' is there a way to set it up so that the user receives our address in the states?
Branding | | NiallSmith0 -
301 or 302 for one of our domains
We have one of our sites that we got rid of and incorporated into our "main" site. We left a 302 redirect from the old sites URL to a landing page on the new site. It act as a branded stub page before registration. We are currently using a 302 to redirect from www.oldsite.com -> www.newbigsite.com/old-site Should I change this to a 301? I loose my google SERP ranking for www.oldsite.com if I do the 301 and it will be replaced by www.newbigsite.com/old-site correct? Thanks
Branding | | GeorgeLaRochelle0 -
Should I host my blog on-site or off-site?
I'm working on a personal project at the moment...basically the blog will be active before the website - it's one of those things where the blog is the journey to the finished website kinda thing (picture it sort of like an adventure traveller who plans to write a book about his travels, and also blogs about his experiences as they happen - eventually leading up to the launch of the book). Ideally the blog would be a part of the website, so all the links the blog gets help your website to rank (and it's the website I'm interested in ranking obviously, not the blog). But there are two problems: 1. I don't really want people using my website before it's completed. 2. I'd kinda like to have a different design and theme to the blog, and for it to have it's own domain and branding. I also don't want to clog up my website with random blog posts - and I'd like the freedom of an independent platform to do things that my website is not designed for. Any suggestions on how to solve this problem? Is there a way to let Google know that the blog is a part of my site even though it's on a different domain? How would I funnel all of the link-juice from the blog most effectively?
Branding | | makeshiftyy0 -
Anybody use Twibbon to promote a website/cause/event?
I stumbled across Twibbon today - it's a service that basically creates an easy way for you to brand your Twitter/Facebook pictures, and to allow others to promote your cause as well. I'm not sure if I'm late to get on board here or if this is a relatively new thing, but it seems pretty cool. I can definitely see this really working out for promoting philanthropic causes. It would also work really well for events - imagine if every speaker at an SEO conference used Twibbon to brand their Twitter/Facebook? I think it would really help with branding, for both individuals and businesses.
Branding | | AnthonyMangia1 -
Google Displays Domain / URL Above Description?
I am seeing a new SERP format from Google. (new for me at least) In the past the title tag would display as the first line of a listing, followed by description and domain / URL. Today I see the domain / URL as the second line. This is placing an emphasis on "Who". If you have a big brand or a great URL this might be helpful to your CTR. Are you seeing this? What do you think of it?
Branding | | EGOL0