Dental Office With Two Locations And Same Practice Name
-
Dentists buy other practices all the time. Sometimes they change the name of the practice and other times they keep the name.
I am working with a dentist on a new website because their old one is riddled with flash (and is ugly too) She has two practices but they have the same practice name. One of them caters to half English speaking and half Spanish speaking patients.
I'm thinking I should create a separate website for each practice mainly because we may want to design the graphics and text for the appropriate patient language probably with a English/Spanish translation button on the website?
For localization, wouldn't it be better to have a url for each physical site?
Suggestions?
-
Hi Bob,
I'm getting a 'server not found' page when I tried to access your demo site. I guess I don't know what theme you're using, but I would imagine you can create whatever kind of pages or you'd need to. If you're using something like the All-in-One SEO-Pack and permalinks, you could even make the 2 city landing pages as blog posts and just link to them from the main menu. But, I don't know what challenges you are facing with your theme, obviously.
Hope you can figure it out. I know it's sometimes tough when clients are on a tight budget. You've just got to let them know what you can do for their investment. The nice thing about websites is that they can always grow as budget becomes available. Good luck!
-
I'll have to figure out how to do this. I was planning on using Wordpress for this. Here is the demo site I have so far. dental1.datacomplete.com. I don't think this theme can be tweaked to allow for the landing pages as you described but I will give it a shot tomorrow. Unfortunately the dentists that I am working with are going through a rebuilding process and their funds are somewhat limited so I am trying to get something up for them with cost in mind and with something that they can edit the content themselves. Thanks again!
-
Hi Bob,
Thanks for answering my question. Given what you've described, I don't see the necessity for the complexity of subdomains, though others might see this differently. What I see is this:
-
She has one business. This logically equals one website.
-
She can create a city landing page for each of her offices on the site (mytoothdoctor.com/torrance and mytoothdoctor.com/wilmington). Yes, you can link to these from the homepage as well as from the main menu. Be sure that these pages are not simply duplicates of one another with the city name changed. They need to be unique, helpful pages of copy for the user, as well as being locally optimized.
-
She can optimize her contact page, footer and other areas of the site for both of her offices...it's not like you're dealing with 20 locations here. Only two of them.
-
She can offer a Spanish language version of the site as well. No problemo so long as you follow best practices on this.
-
She can claim a unique Google Place page for each location, plus other local business directory listings because of the distinct location data.
In your shoes, I would be looking for the easiest-to-manage plan for this client, and unless I'm really missing something, I don't see a need for subdomains in this scenario, and certainly not for multiple websites. Build a single, powerhouse site for the client and both you and she will find it easy to manage for the long haul.
Hope my suggestions help! Miriam
-
-
Thanks for the information.
Yes she has two locations operating under the same name and are 6 miles apart with different zip codes and different phone numbers.
I may want to try that "Chat Live Now" type of software for her practice and she may want to give different offers to different offices.
if i used something like mytoothdoctor.com for the main site and then displayed a box to choose a location would that be kinda goofy?
Then I would have mytoothdoctor.com as the main site and then torrance.mytoothdoctor.com and wilmington.mytoothdoctor.com
-
Hi Bob,
I want to be sure I understand this correctly. When you say the dentist bought a second practice, are you saying that she now has 2 physical offices with unique local are code phone numbers and street addresses, though they share the same business name? Is that right?
If they are in 2 distinct locations with unique phone/addresses, then it is up to the client whether she wants to be running 2 different businesses, or simply be a multi-location business.
If she wants that practices branded differently, then, yes, I would vote for 2 websites, with the proviso that nothing is duplicated from one site to the other. All content must be unique for each site if she really wants to be running 2 distinct practices.
If she wants to have a single practice with different branches, I vote for building one well-optimized website and utilizing Local SEO best practices to ensure that her geo information is being correctly featured for the two locations. Again, landing pages for the two offices will need to feature unique copy (hire a copywriter who knows Local) and the footer, contact page and other elements need to be appropriately optimized in accord with best local practices. Lots and lots of businesses have more than one location, so this would just be a typical Local SEO project. Get the dentist to consult with a Local SEO if this isn't your area so that the new design has the right stuff baked into it from step one.
Regarding duplicate content on multilingual site, this is not a major concern. I recommend reading this earlier Q&A thread on this topic:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/site-with-multiple-languages
Hope this helps!
Miriam
-
Hi Bob
I have dealt with a similar situation for one of my clients. They offered same service at 2 different states and also they had a 3rd site for their educational site.
They worked with a company that had over 20 domain names forwarding in each address and created confusion. So we basically build one site http://www.adaptivemobility.com/ and we forwarded the 2 existing domains to the interanl pages of the site http://www.adaptivemobility.com/indiana/ and http://www.adaptivemobility.com/florida/ .
This worked for our client and made it easy to promote as they usually send everyone now to their main site. But all other sites that linked to the old URls still link to the internal pages. I hoped the link will help you decide on what to do. I also agree with just having a translation option build in.
-
Hi Bob,
I would think you would need to be careful with this situation. I am unsure if duplicate content problems can arise if the content is in two different languages. I think you nailed it on the head when you said one website with a translation button.
For localization I think it would depend on how far away these locations are from each other and if both practices are doing business the same way.
It is possible to add more than one location to directories with a single URL.
Hope I helped....
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
-
Facebook name change error
I keep getting "The Page name you entered does not meet our guidelines. Please review our Page name policies." My name change is well within policy. The page has about 400 fans. I am literally changing a minor aspect. Getting rid of a plural word. Any work around since facebook's site is not working for this?
Branding | | Atomicx0 -
Should the Facebook page be just the brand name or also include keywords?
Hi. Do you recommend that a company's Facebook Page be just the Brand Name, or should it include some keywords in the title?
Branding | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Google + Brand Page for Multiple Locations
We have had our Google Places pages up and running now for a bit, and we are looking to start our Google + Brand page. What is the best way to handle a Brand page with multiple locations? Create a page for each location so we can connect them to their Places equivalent? Create one overall brand page and not connect it to the Google Places? A lot of the information I am seeing is around a year out of date with Google saying "something is coming" but no updates since then, so how have others in similar situations handled it?
Branding | | BeOnAir0 -
Branding Association for SEO, and Google's understanding of a "brand Name"
Hey guys. so I currently run my own business here in Queens NY, for Web Design and online marketing, specifically SEO, SMM, SEM, and some inbound marketing that ties to SMM and SEO. When starting I was in a different business, and had kept my old business name. I plan on re-branding myself January 1st with a brand new name, the name i'm seriously considering is "Media Marketing USA". I was able to purchase MediaMarketingUSA.com. I feel this name is good and bad at the same time, and here are some of the reasons. The pro: Easy to remember, sounds big, and describes my business well. The con: Sounds generic, and I worry it will be hard to brand. I used the mentioning tool provided by Moz and see that nearly everyday 500-1,000 people are naturally mentioning Media Marketing USA, one of my biggest questions is will this give me a competitive advantage in SEO, or will it hurt me in SEO as Google may not see this or understand its a brand name? Do you personally think this is a good name to re-brand myself and use as my main website? The Website itself will be used as a corporate website, a method of inbound and outbound marketing through content creation, Social Media, and of course SEO, targeting specific locations, and specialty services and industries in the NYC area. Please share your thoughts with me, THANKS!!!
Branding | | tonyr71 -
One physical location but we serve 7 counties
I am a new business and I have one physical location but we serve 7 counties in CA how should I plan to list it?
Branding | | avimoz0 -
A forum on your primary domain name (implications)
Hi there What are the pitfalls of putting a forum on an already busy ecommerce website from an SEO perspective?
Branding | | bfrl
I wouldn't use a sub domain, I would add the forum on the primary domain in an attempt to help build my inbound link portfolio. Some pro's and cons that come to mind... Pros - Lots of (hopefully) great user generated and relevant content - Lots of potential landing pages off the back of the above Targeted community Cons - Dealing with potential negative forum posts Constant moderation Possible issues with potentially 1000's of (what Google may consider) low quality pages on a domain name / site which currently fairs well in the SERPs The last con would be my primary concern.
Anyone have any experiences with this? Or any advice at all. Many thanks0 -
Can we publish two guest posts on one domain with same pen name but different linking website?
Can we publish two guest posts on one domain with same pen name but different linking website? Actually I have been doing guest posts with pen name “Jane Andrew” for “abc.com”(bit old and well performing website). Now I need to post for a new website “xyz.com” on some old domains (where I have already published my articles) so the situation is that I want domains and pen name to remain same but linking website would be different. I had few questions in my mind regarding that and I would be grateful if you help me getting the required information. Is it right from SEO, branding and marketing point of view? How Google interprets this? Is there any harm for the old well performing website or for the new one? And also both websites are owned and managed by the same owner.
Branding | | shaz_lhr0 -
Which domain name should i choose for a air ticket search engine?
Hi, i am deciding to buy a domain name for a air ticket search engine. i want to target australia first and then worldwide in the future. most of the names with my keywords "cheap flights" are already been registered. I have tried many combination but could not find a proper name. One question is does keywords rich domains (not exact) helps a lot? also i was thinking if i can an keyword rich domain i could easily get links with the desired anchor text links. would it be a lot harder to get a domain name e.g. flightscomparision.com while targeting the term "cheap flights" or "cheap fares". Also i was thinking if i get a domain with "A" at the beginning i will be listed on top of directories. below are a list of domains i am able to register. amcheapflights.com aucheapflights.com abroadflights.com flightscomparision.com any other suggestions? thanks ray
Branding | | usaccess6080