Local Optimization for Multiple Businesses Issues/Strategy
-
Hello Everyone,
So we have a client with a geo-focused ‘sports’ site but they also have a second site they are using to promote the seasonal camps they run. Local demographics and traffic would be a priority and main source of traffic. We know it would be ideal to have all of it consolidated but in this case a separate site was needed.
The camp site would be under a different Name but they do not really have a different physical location from the primary site. Assuming we can’t find a discernable different location we could use; from a local optimization perspective we have two questions:
-
Does that mean that we shouldn’t venture into local listings that need an address and trying to rank for map results and instead shift focus to other local strategies (i.e. geo-relevant content, link acquisition….etc.)? – We don’t want to dilute or devalue the primary site at all but if possible would like to be able to come up for both.
-
Should we avoid listing the address on the camp site as text for similar reasons?
We know the same business could be listed for multiple locations but any suggestions on the opposite approach or input would be very appreciated.
Please let us know if there is anything we could provide details for that might help.
Looking forward to hearing from all of you!
Thank you in advance.
Best,
-
-
Hi Ben,
Another good question. I want to preface what I'm saying here by saying I'm not an expert in linkbuilding and that I see what you're asking about as having some grey area. I'll do my best to describe what I'm talking about.
In an organic SEO scenario with virtual businesses, I agree with Rand's explanation in this WB Friday https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/backlinks-maximize-benefits-avoid-problems-whiteboard-friday. Please, watch the video and pay special attention to his explanation of linking from mysite.com to myothersite.com, where he's describing cross linking between two domains you control. So, his explanation is good on this and very educational and well-thought-out.
Now, once you've watched that, we need to consider that your business scenario is not virtual - it's local, and you're having to take all of these extra steps to make sure your two websites don't get mixed up with one another in Google's "mind". Again, if you were able to get the client to consolidate, then you and I would be recommending a super internal linking strategy because that would be purely internal and would not look like the business is trying to manipulate anything. But, in the multi-site local business scenario, we're dealing with 3 possible outcomes from cross linking:
-
It could potentially look to Google like the business is trying to artificially elevate the authority of that second site, though Rand's advice could help lessen the chances of that.
-
You're taking all these steps to separate website A from website B (ensuring there is no shared NAP or shared content) to avoid citation confusion, but now, you could potentially be undoing all of that by overtly associating the two sites back together by crosslinking between them. If there's no matching NAP between the two sites, citations may not suffer and duplicate listings are unlikely to result, but you are definitely letting Google know that both sites are related.
-
And, even if you think you're being pretty mild in your cross linking, it's important to know that there have been cases in which the industry has speculated that Google was applying the Possum filter in the local rankings based on a parent company controlling the two entities. See the #2 case in Joy' Hawkin's article about Possum: http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900. I mention this not because you'd be going after local rankings for the two entities (you're only pursuing then for the main business), but simply to illustrate that Google may well understand that the same business is controlling both websites based on something like the same parent company being listed on two business licenses. Google can dive pretty deep, it seems.
Point of all of the above: there really may be little way to hide from Google that a single business owns both entities, so basing the SEO strategy of either on crosslinking between the two may not be that smart. To me, personally, it's a strategy that seems kind of manipulative at face value, and while I've described nuances that could make a gentle approach not too big of a deal, I'd be leery of making it into a "strategy", per se, for the business. That second website, if it must exist, needs to be good enough to earn links on its own and to be a candidate for selective external linkbuilding efforts. If it has to lean heavily on the main site, it's just another argument for why the multi-site approach isn't really recommended.
Whew! Long answer, but this is a complex topic. Hopefully you can read up further on this topic to form your own opinion and help the business make a sound decision.
-
-
Thank you Miriam for your great answer and help! This was incredibly helpful. Believe me I pushed for the ‘consolidated’ approach but looks like we’ll have to make sure the address is not crawlable on the ‘secondary’ site.
Any suggestions on linking strategies between the two in how it relates to local performance? – Meaning assuming we’re running a full campaign for both (so it’s not just a microsite type strategy) should we leverage the authority of our primary domain (linking from both domains) or go the other way and play it safe (i.e. trying to avoid this to further distinguish the two locations by things like ‘nofollow’ links).
Please let us know if there is anything we could provide details for that might help.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Thanks again!
Best,
-
Hi Ben,
Good question. Yes, what you're concerned about here is genuine. The key point to understand is that Local SEO (in particular citation building) is completely tied to physical location, not to brand. So, in your case, you've got two different websites promoting two different aspects of your business, but only one physical location, meaning that you're only eligible for one set of listings representing the location. I'm not totally clear about what the main business model is; you mention a sports site. Is this like a gym or something like that?
The main concern with what you are doing (promoting two websites) would be that if the address and phone number is on both websites, it could potentially feed Google confusing information about which of the two brands is associated with that address and phone number. Is it the sports site, or the camps? This can lead to duplicate listings appearing, which can undermine your efforts to rank the physical location.
So, if I'm understanding correctly that the sports site is something like a gym, or a rock climbing school, or something like that, with a physical location customer come to, here's what I'd do if it's absolutely impossible to consolidate the two websites into one:
-
Build citations for the sports site only. Link all of them to the website for the sports site.
-
Do not build citations for the camp sessions (which are likely ineligible for GMB listings anyway as they sound like an event rather than a place). If these must have their own website, be sure they have a unique phone number that is placed on the camps' website. Do not put the address of the camps in crawlable text on the camps' website. Put it in image text as a safeguard. This is to avoid the NAP of the camps getting mixed up with the NAP of the sports site.
-
Do a really thorough check for duplicate listings that may already have been created. Moz Check Listing would be a good place to start: https://mza.bundledseo.com/local/search. Resolve any duplicates and check for them regularly.
-
Be sure that the content on the two sites is completely unique. Don't duplicate content between the two sites.
And that will be about the best you can do. Ideally, though, I'd try hard to persuade the owner that the above approach is kind of a workaround to what would be the much better solution: consolidation of the website, which completely resolves the need for all of these provisos and careful steps. Then, you'd simply have a section on the site listing the camp sessions as part of what the sports site offers and there would be far less concern that any duplicates would crop up or that there would be duplicate content or what have you.
Hope this helps, and if I'm in any way misunderstanding the business model, please feel free to provide further details.
-
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
-
What could be stopping us from ranking locally?
We do most of our business in national SEO and we do reasonably well, but we are entering a niche where search engine results are served locally. This is the page we are trying to get ranked: https://idearocketanimation.com/video-production-company/ The page has been indexed We beat all the rankers in Domain Authority We're competitive in terms of reviews We're strongly competitive in terms of load time We are a SAB, but other SABs seem to rank, and even companies with no GMB listing rank We have mentioned our locality on the page and meta title It's not that we are not ranking well... we're not even in the top 50. Is there something I've done wrong, or forgotten to do? What might be stopping Google from ranking us locally?
Local Listings | | Wagster2 -
Physical Address issue
Hi there, I have one domain, I am operating My website From USA, Physical address is also of USA, But I want to Target All Users to Thailand, As its Online casino Site, So My Question is, : Is there any way to promote My website With USA address in Thailand ?? Do i Will get Proper Search Ranking For That ?? Please Help me Out For this.. Thank you in advacne
Local Listings | | poojaverify050 -
Which Rank Trackers Include Local 3-pack Rankings?
Granted the Local 3-pack is heavily influenced by the distance between the user and the business, when you actually include the city name in the search, the local 3 pack result doesn't center the map at the city in the search and not the user's location so it is much more consistent despite the searcher's location. So my personal opinion is that it is worth tracking local 3-pack when you use a keyword such as "Home Inspection Seattle Wa" With that said, which rank tracking services includes the local 3-pack in their tracking results, other than of course Bright Local?
Local Listings | | JCCMoz0 -
Local sites to make sure I'm listed in - which ones?
I'd love to know what sites this community deems most important when looking at whether my business & site are listed there. I know the obvious - Google Places, Yahoo Maps, Bing Local, Yelp. Foursquare. What others do you consider to be "mission critical" to the general market? Thanks!
Local Listings | | wcksmith10 -
Local search result not showing
Hi Mozzers, I'm not a huge expert on local SEO.. the thing is when searching for our brand + city. or brand name specific or anything we do not get the map on the right with our contact info and such.
Local Listings | | kayintveen_MD
To be sure this is what we've done. We have a google+ page + verified content (for more than 4 months now) We have images, opening times, email, url's and such filled in (for 4 months now) We are on several local sites with our address, and such We do have some old listings here and there where we have old addresses but its just a few and we are on it to update / deleting them We have Microdata on our site with our address, lat lang and such. All address data on social, and few other pages are super in sync with each other. We are located in the Netherlands so a lot of info on this site we cannot use, becuase they don't accept us for example. Very curious on some interesting info how to optimize and why we are not showing.0 -
Does anybody have any data on what percentage of people actually click on a Google Places / Google+ listing VS call the business direct from the SERPs?
I've had a few SMB clients who have experienced drops in website traffic once their Google Places listing has gone live. It's hard for the average SMB to understand that this may not be a bad thing because they actually may be received more leads direct from the local SERPs. So while I can try to explain this to my clients, it'd be nice to have some broad data on how searchers interact with Google local listings. I'd love to learn what percentage of people call direct from the SERPs instead of clicking through to the business' website link. Obviously, the percentages would vary across different verticals, different devices & depending on whether the search query was branded or non-branded. I'm after some rough average data, so if anyone could point me in the right direction, that'd be great! 🙂
Local Listings | | Dave_Eddy0 -
Convert Google Plus page to Business page
I have a google plus page for my company edspire.com, https://plus.google.com/b/107395030190889162381/107395030190889162381/posts When I created it I don't think I set it up as a business so I'd like to convert to one. As far as I can see it is not possible to do this. What is the recommended process, do I just create a new one and migrate content over or is there some way to merge them? Should I then delete the old one or is it helpful to keep double posting? Thanks, Jim
Local Listings | | yojimbo230 -
Local seo yoast plug in
https://yoast.com/wordpress/local-seo/ Anyone used? Any good? I have purchased as Yoast seems to be a good all rounder. I am targetting geographical and my question is: Is there any seo benefit ?It isnt a requirement of the plug in to add a physical addess ( you can add that it isnt and put a town) I did a quick test http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/locations/kent-band-hire/ In conjunction with an area page would Mr Google smile with glee or get his big red marker out ? Cheers as always!
Local Listings | | Agentmorris0