How to approach SEO for a business with three distinct focus areas
-
I have a client who has asked for the development and optimisation of three websites for a business located at one address. They offer specialised skin care, have a make-up artistry division and also a luxury portraiture/photographic service offered to clients. I have suggested one website, based on all I have read in this community (Possum etc.).
Their concern is that they will seem like a "master of none" and envision three sites interlinked. Before I push back and categorically say that this is a poor idea, I wanted to gain some insight from those of you who may have dealt with this scenario before. I need to explain how one domain can be structured to present all three these areas as distinct, given that the home page will speak to all three. Any ideas regarding site structure and optimisation strategy would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
-
Three websites = 3x the work...and budget needed. Similar to a medical clinic when it comes to services. List this company's services and optimize accordingly. If it is an incredibly competitive market, niche website may be the way to go.
If I had it my way, in a medium to low competition market, i would focus on strengthen the content & DA on one site, rather than 3.
-
Hi Werner,
This is a really interesting scenario, not typical of this type of question, in that you are genuinely talking about 3 different businesses here. Most often, we see questions in the forum from something like an HVAC contractor who wants to do one website for heating and another for cooling. The answer to that is an unequivocal "no", because the business is really a single entity trying to fake the appearance of being multiple businesses for the sake of SEO.
In your client's case, she has 3 unique businesses that would be represented by 3 unique Google My Business categories. Because of the different categories, we'd think less about Possum problems in this scenario, despite the shared address, because someone looking for a make-up artist is not going to be doing the same search as they would if they were seeking a portrait photographer. If she had 3 different offices, each offering just one of the services, it would make sense to consider 3 different websites accompanies by 3 sets of citations/reviews/social outreach, etc.
But, the fact that this is one owner, at a single location would make me steer her away from the multi-site approach. Managing the marketing for 3 businesses is likely to lead to burnout of either finances or creative resources, and there is the off-chance that Google could mistake the model as spam, deciding that the 3 businesses are actually just one, given the share address. I'm actually not too scared that they would do this, but it is a risk, even if she were to establish the 3 separate phone lines staffed by people who always answer the phone for only the correct business.
I think the dilemma/opportunity facing your client is one of business identity. She needs to identify what connects her three services instead of dividing them up by how they differ. If she can hit upon a single business identity that covers this wide range of services, she'll have a single business to market, at a single address, with a single phone to staff, a single reputation to manage. Your client sounds creative. I'd advise brainstorming with her so that you wind up with something like a business called "Best Face" that covers having your makeup done, your portrait taken, and your skin treated all under one roof, rather than being Anna's Makeup, Anna's Skin Care and Anna's Portraits on 3 different sites. Build a single brand that revolves around celebration of the human face, or something along those lines, and put EGOL's good advice into full action, cross selling the services and creating an indelible reputation for the owner.
-
Yes, guiding structure. Showing clear ties from one service of the business to another.
-
You are spot on with that description! She is a very gifted and versatile person who needs to continue to apply what has been natural...with a little bit of guiding structure.
-
Your client sounds like a Renaissance Man. A person who has mastered many things. A Leonoardo da Vinci. If this person also has panache, presenting a business of many artistic services seems natural.
-
Thank you very much EGOL. This confirms my intended strategy, and gives some substance to the conversation I need to have. I'll need to figure out how to best structure this website so that potential clients see each offering as valuable in their own right, but also see the relevance to other services, as you have pointed out. This would also need to be coupled with some landing pages, me thinks. Thanks again.
-
I would work on convincing the client about....
-- the value of cross-selling, many current clients probably use more than one service, they bought one and then bought more
-- the importance of uniting all of your assets to perform well in search
-- the relevance of these services to one another and how that might help them rank better in google and appeal to multiple customers
-- in these businesses it is hard to find someone you can trust and satisfies you... once you find that person or business it is much easier to allow them to do additional services for you... this is building loyalty of the customer and building their respect for your business
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
-
Novice SEO Question - UK & COM Results
Would someone please explain to me why when doing this search https://www.google.co.uk/search?pws=0&q=online+texas+hold+em there are uk and com pages ranking in the results for pokerstars & how do I fix it? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | charliegirlcontent1 -
Research on industries that are most competitive for SEO?
I am trying to see if there is a reputable / research-backed source that can show which industries are most competitive for search engine optimization. In particularly, I'd be interested in reports / research related to the residential real estate industry, which I believe based on anecdotal experience to be extremely competitive.
Local Website Optimization | | Kevin_P3 -
Weird SEO Problem - No Longer Ranking in Some Areas
Hi Everyone, I’ve got a weird SEO issue that I hope you’ll be able to help with. I’ve broken it down in to the key points below: Impressions for our primary and secondary keywords dropped dramatically on 02.10.17. Impressions have only dropped on non geographical keywords. “UK” variants are still ranking well. Investigation shows we’re not ranking outside of London at all for primary and secondary keywords. Primary and secondary keywords are still ranking well in London, the city where we’re based We’ve looked at our competition who do rank for the primary keyword both in and outside London. We noticed we have our “postaladdress” in our schema. The competition don’t have their address in their schema. We updated our schema 2 weeks ago and now use the Yoast schema which is the same as our competitors use. Approx 1 week after removing the schema we started showing up for primary and secondary keyword again, but very low - fluctuating between page 15 and page 24. It’s been 2 weeks now and no improvement. AHREFS and google webmaster, both incorrectly detail that we rank top 5. Which is true to a degree, but only in London. Thank you in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | rswhtn0 -
What's the best SEO solution for international targeting of different english speaking countries?
Hi guys, recently won a client who operates globally, their domain is .com and their head office is in the UK. They have built regional sub-directories and translated content and pages of their site for /ru, /fr etc. The issue comes with their /us and /ca pages. This content for the most part is identical to the main .com site. The content is still in English and can't in most situations be changed to be more localised, so there are duplicate content issues. Trying to think of options: Ensure hreflang is added properly, build regional links to regional pages, get local contact details / NAP on all regional pages, set up Google business listings for each regional office and link accordingly. Will Google be able to identify these regional pages as more suitable search results for US searches? Make the main .com version of the content the canonical, which takes away any ranking benefits of the regional pages altogether, but removes the duplicate content issues and means we can focus link building and content resources into making sure the .com version of the page ranks well. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | SamFanatic0 -
SEO for Franchises - Subdomains or Folders?
Wondering if there ever has been any recent consensus on best SEO strategy for a Franchise. I feel it is safe to assume that just having one corporate website with a "store locator" that just brings up the address, phone and hours of a location is not optimal. Yes, the important thing is to get a Google Places for Business listing for each location so you can come up in the 3-pack and regular Maps result, BUT, the rankings for the 3-pack is largely determined by the site's authority and relevance to the specific search term used, IN ADDITION TO, the proximity of the business to the search user's physical location. Apparently it is widely believed that domain authority does not transfer from www.mycorporatedomain.com to somecity.mycorporatedomain.com. And of course we also know there is a potential for a duplicate content penalty, so you can't just duplicate your main site for a number of locations and change the address and phone number on the contact page. If the products and or services are identical for each location, then it's going to be somewhat ridiculous to try and rewrite many sections of the website since the information is no different despite the location. It seems in general more people are advocates of putting location pages or micro-sites in a subfolder of the corporate domain so that it can benefit from the domain's authority. HOWEVER, it is also widely known that the home page (root URL) of any domain carries more weight in the eyes of Google. So let's assume the best strategy is to create a micro-site where phone and address is different anywhere they appear and the contact page is customized to that location, and the "Meet The Staff" page is customized to that location. The site uses the same style 'template' if you will as the main site. Let's also assume you can build a custom home page that has some different content, but still shares the same look and some of the same information as the main site. But let's say between the different phone, address, and maybe some different images and 20% of the content rewritten a bit, Google doesn't view it as dupe content. So would the best strategy then be to have the location home page be: somecity.mycorporatedomain.com and the product and services pages that are identical to the main site you just use a rel canonical to point to the main site? Or, do you make the "home page" for the local business be a subfolder of the main site. So I guess what it boils down to is whether or not the domain authority has more of an effect compared to having a unique home page on a subdomain. What about this? Say the only thing different on the local site is the contact (phone/address) in the header and/or footer of every page, the contact form page, and the meet the staff page. All other content is identical to the corp site, including the home page. I think in that case you need to use a script to serve the pages dynamically. So you would need to server the pages using a PHP script that detects the subfolder name to determine the location and dynamically replaces the phone and address and server different contact and staff pages. You could have a vanity domain mycity.mycorporatedomain.com that does a 301 redirect to the subfolder home page. (This is all ofcourse assuming the subfolder method is the way to go.)
Local Website Optimization | | SeoJaz0 -
Schema training/resources for local SEO?
I am currently in the process of apply schema for dozens of clients (many are large retailers). Although I am not a developer, I do know the basics of schematic markup & structured data. I do work with a development team and I'm trying to provide them with schema application best practices. Obviously there are many good articles/blog posts out there about schema. However I'm looking for a more substantial training course, webinar or resource website about schema application. Does anybody have any good recommendations?
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB0 -
Subdomain for ticketing of a client website (how to solve SEO problems caused by the subdomain/domain relationship)
We have a client in need of a ticketing solution for their domain (let's call it www.domain.com) which is on Wordpress - as is our custom ticket solution. However, we want to have full control of the ticketing, since we manage it for them - so we do not want to build it inside their original Wordpress install. Our proposed solution is to build it on tickets.domain.com. This will exist only for selling and issuing the tickets. The question is, is there a way to do this without damaging their bounce rate and SEO scores?
Local Website Optimization | | Adam_RushHour_Marketing
Since customers will come to www.domain.com, then click the ticketing tab and land on tickets.domain.com, Google will see this as a bounce. In reality, customers will not notice the difference as we will clone the look and feel of domain.com Should we perhaps have the canonical URL of tickets.domain.com point to www.domain.com? And also, can we install Webmaster Tools for tickets.domain.com and set the preferred domain as www.domain.com? Are these possible solutions to the problem, or not - and if not, does anyone else have a viable solution? Thank you so much for the help.0 -
Business in one location, be found in others?
Hi all, A bit of an interesting one but I am sure you can all help. My client has a business in a town called location A. Surrounding town A there are several other towns - My client wants to make sure they also appear in SERPs for these surrounding areas, even though their business is not physically located there. E.g. Product town A
Local Website Optimization | | HB17
Product town B
Product town C
Or even just being physically searching from one of those locations and typing the product name, they want to be on that first page. For example if you live in town B which is 20 miles away, my clients still wants to appear right at the top of the SERPs as they are competing against other businesses for that area. They also want to appear for town C, D, and E, all of which are surrounding town A. How can I make this happen? Would I need to create multiple landing pages and focus the SEO on each individual location? I'm just worried Google would see duplicate content but with varied location keywords. I don't have any room left in the page title to add every location. They do legitimately serve these areas, if you are looking for their product there are a few competitors around but this is in their 'territory' so to speak. Any help big or small would be great. Thanks!0