I have 5 sites each targeting a different service my company offers, should I consolidate to one site or merge to one?

[hashtagltd]

I run a photo booth company and have a site for each service I offer. Are smaller sites that are SEO for each service stronger than just having pages for each service on one mother site?thanks,

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Andrew,

I agree with what Tim and David are saying here ... part of this does depend on how successfully these 5 sites are currently performing for you. The fact that you're pondering this a bit makes me wonder if the sites aren't doing as well as you think they should. I'm having a little trouble envisioning the reason behind 5 sites for a photo booth company, but it's not an industry with which I've ever consulted.. Are the 5 services so distinct that they really warrant 5 sites, or are they all essentially related?

[AlanMosley]

Are they simular sites?

if yes then yes I would consolidate, 301 all links to the one site and stop splitting your efforts.

If the sites are not relevant to each other then no.

[David-Kley]

We just did this for two different clients. His domains were spread out, and none of them performed particularly wonderful. Honestly, it depends upon the current performance and how you set it up.

Most businesses that offer multiple services or products can be combined into one main site that houses them all. For example:

If you had a company that provided lawn care, landscaping and driveway paving, you could consolidate them into one site easily. The pages would be set up as mydomain.com/service and then additionally mydomain.com/service/service-details. Once your main site is completed, you would then redirect the other sites and all their pages into your new main site. If the other domains already had authority, it could help push the new one out the door. Not to mention handling the social aspect and citation doirectoris would be much easier and efficient when you only have to do it for one domain.

I recommend bringing all the services into one site unless they are not related. For example if you had an HVAC company, and a lawn care division in the same site that would not make sense. People searching for lawn care would be less likely to click on a HVAC related domain, and also competitors that only provided one of those services would most likely rank higher, as they only have to optimize for one thing. Also, all their citation links will only talk about them for that one thing, giving them better credibility and consistency. Chances are it would be difficult to find a domain that covered all the services as well.

[TimHolmes]

Hmmm, I think this could depend up on how well things are going a the minute. Are your sites performing well and are they bringing in the customers/leads you are hoping to attain.

There is nothing wrong with having all of these sites, but how do you market other products should the customer land and expect one product, only to find its not quite the one they want. These customer could be leaving without performing an action , yet your other site may have one of the products they desire available, but they did not know.

I would probably suggest having a main branded site that houses all of your items, that way you are able to cross sell your items and people have a greater choice to select from. I would then maybe hold onto these additional micro-sites for any peripheral traffic you have and possibly try drive people to move onto your main branded site.

Just be careful of creating too many sites that link back to yourself which could be seen as a little unnatural. Your micro-sites could be phased out in time once your main branded site gathers pace and develops into a larger presence.

Hope that offers some ideas.