Creating 20+ websites with links back to central site
-
Hey guys,
A client of ours owns an IT company with 20+ locations across the UK. He is looking for a solution to provide each of their 20+ locations with a page or website that they can manage themselves that links directly back to the main site.
His idea is to create 20+ one or two page websites that could all link back to the main central site - aiding the possibility of ranking well for locally-based terms.
At the moment, we have a page for each of the 20+ locations on the main site. However, the client wants to give his franchisees complete control over their web presence.
Would a setup like this work? Would it be logical to have 20+ websites (likely to follow a very similar format) all pointing to one central website? Would we have to "no-follow" links back to main site in order to show we aren't trying to manipulate page rank?
Would creating sub folders on the main site be a better option for each of the 20+ locations?
Any feedback appreciated!
-
I would agree also. Creating Sub-Folders is the best way to go.
I would add just a few quick points:
1. Include schema.org geocoordates to your pages: http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates
2. Sign up for Yelp if it is applicable for your client's business locations.
3. Make sure your Meta Description for each page mentions a city/town name.
4. Pretty simple one but more related to the site overall - Setting Geographical targeting in Google webmaster
5. Sign up for Google+ Local (mentioned above), Bing Places and Yahoo Local
6. If your business is related to Yelp, your most likely able to handle other review sites. Submit the business to reviews sites which will help generate more exposure for the brand. The reviews can also be used in Google - increase CTR% (if you have good reviews)Good Luck!
-
Agreed. Building out sub-folders is a better strategy in the long-run because your client will be gaining more authority on their main domain as a result. A tip for those landing pages would be to embed a google map with the complete business address along with links to local resources.
-
Creating sub folders is better as you do not have to worry about your 20 web sites looking like some sort of link farm. Plus, you build the overall brand with the main website. That said, you do not want 20 identical pages for each location on the main website. You would want to have unique and original information on each location page about that location, who works there, what services do they provide, etc etc.
If you want to give the client more control, why not setup each of the location pages so that a location could login and update the information. It would be just like you can update your Google+ Local profile, you could even setup a login etc.
That said, if you give the client control of the listing/page/website then you run into the issue that client will often do a poor job of providing good information, and/or mess up your SEO if you are trying to get those pages ranked.
I would suggest a hybrid solution where you setup the pages for each location, even interview each location and gather up the information that is needed to really make those location pages information rich. You can then take input from that location and build your pages with that information. If there are some small edits or updates that a location needs, you can make those updates (or not) as you would still maintain editorial and SEO control.
I have managed a site with thousands of locations and we found that use of the folders worked really well. We actually gave users access to update location profiles, but often they would put information that was frankly, poorly written. Throw out all the SEO points, some of these "self edited" location profiles did not make me want to visit that location as the copy was so poor. It was not until we took more control of the content on location pages that we were able to get a good balance between original content from the locations and well written page with an eye to SEO.
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
-
Site Speed Testing Tools For Production Sites
Hi Guys, Any free site speed testing tools for sites in production, which are password protected? We want to test site speed before the new site goes live on top priority pages. Site is on Shopify – we tried google page insights while being logged into the production site but believe its just recording the speed of the password page. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brandonegroup1 -
My wordpress site generating bad links
Hello Everyone, I have wordpress site Which is from last 20 days generating links like For Example http://www.domainname.com/game/965/wiki/キャラクター図鑑_レアリティ(★★★)_【ID:675】ワッツ・ステップニー htttp://www.domainname.com/nkpghfu_13356_gvgjq_tfjhnkt_jsj_296_82566_673_567_245 This is screenshot of webmaster tools http://prnt.sc/ccwh0e can please any expert check & Tell How this Link i am getting, Also What are steps i need take for removing this Errors, As it is harming my sites Flow As well As Rankings. Thanx in Advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innovativekrishna10 -
Links to my site still showing in Webmaster Tools from a non-existent site
We owned 2 sites, with the pages on Site A all linking over to similar pages on Site B. We wanted to remove the links from Site A to Site B, so we redirected all the links on Site A to the homepage on Site A, and took Site A down completely. Unfortunately we are still seeing the links from Site A coming through on Google Webmaster Tools for Site B. Does anybody know what else we can do to remove these links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pedstores0 -
Will merging sites create a duplicate content penalty?
I have 2 sites that would be better suited being merged and creating a more authoritative site. Basically I'de like to merge site A in to site B. If I add new pages from site A to Site B and create 301 redirects for those pages on site A to the new pages on Site B is that the best way to go about it? As the pages are already indexed would this create any duplicate content issue or would the redirect solve this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | boballanjones0 -
Moving half my website to a new website: 301?
Good Morning! We currently have two websites which are driving all of our traffic. Our end goal is to combine the two and fold them into each other. Can I redirect the duplicate content from one domain to our main domain even though the URL's are different. Ill give an example below. (The domains are not the real domains). The CEO does not want to remove the other website entirely yet, but is willing to begin some sort of consolidation process. ABCaddiction.com is the main domain which covers everything from drug addiction to dual diagnosis treatment. ABCdualdiagnosis.com is our secondary website which covers everything as well. Can I redirect the entire drug addiction half of the website to ABCaddiction.com? With the eventual goal of moving everything together.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Will an inbound follow link on a site be devalued by an inbound affiliate link on the same site?
Hey guys, quick question I didn't find an answer to online. Scenario: 1. Site A links to Site B. It's a natural, regular, follow-link 2. Site A joins Site B's affiliate program, and adds an affiliate link Question: Does the first, regular follow link get devalued by the second affiliate link? Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ipancake0 -
Launching 20 new URLs to branch out from a multi brand website. How do I make sure the rankings stay?
I have a client with a multiple brand website currently. The site has landing pages and directories for each of its 20 brands under one URL. The plan is to build 20 separate brand websites with new domains and have the old content redirect to its corresponding new URL. The problem that I envision is being able to successfully carry all of the existing indexed content over while only using 301 redirects and submitting the new domains to Webmaster tools. Has anyone done this in the past successfully and do you have any recommendations?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Empower_MediaMarketing0 -
Site Wide Link Situation
Hi- We have clients who are using an e-commerce cart that sits on a separate domain that appears to be providing site wide links to our clients websites. Therefore, would you recommend disallowing the bots to crawl/index these via a robots.txt file, a no follow meta tag on the specific pages the shopping cart links are implemented on or implement no follow links on every shopping cart link? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RezStream80