Sebastien P
Internet marketer and consultant with a healthy addiction for social media, blogging, and SEO.
Multiple domain names with unique content pointing to 1 main website. Is it good?
My company is in the franchising industry. We operate a website called www.WorldFranchising.com, which is pretty much a franchise directory.
We own about 200 URLs related to franchising (ie bestfastfoodfranchises.com). We are not doing anything with these URLs as they are not active.
I am thinking about activating them and create mini-sites (maybe blog?) for each of them, or at least for the most interesting ones.
For each mini-site, we would develop 2-3 pages of UNIQUE content for one main keyword or key phrase. Each mini-site would actually link back to our main site.
I believe we could drive a little traffic to some of the URLs we have as some of them are really good. For example, BestFoodFranchises.com is a term that is searched many times/day on Google. We might be able to get some decent ranking for these. I am also thinking about throwing a few Google Ads in each of these mini-sites as we may be able to generate additional revenues from it (I know it won't pay the rent, but that might pay lunch every once in a while).
I am looking forward to hear the comments of the SEO pros here at LinkedIn. Please let me know what's best and what you would recommend.
Thank you in advance.
Sebastien
Answers (6)
Save the time of setting up multiple domains and consolidate them into one main site that has subfolders for each domain you were going to target with unique content.
From SEOmoz...The "rising tide lifts all ships" effect is one of the biggest reasons to keep as much content as possible behind one domain, rather than splitting into multiple domains. (read the web resource for more info...a great article in fact)
You can consolidate these by redirecting all those domains to your main domain or domain of choice. The reason for this is that one powerful domain in Google's eyes is much better, especially over the long term. As you get more links to that one domain it will become more reputable and trusted by search engines instead of having several moderately trusted and ranked domains. As the entire domain becomes more trusted, smaller long-tail keywords will get ranked easier as well as your main targeted keywords adding to a more visible site in the search engines.
Note: SEOmoz is a great resource and I am in no way getting paid or an affiliate of the company
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I agree with Kevin. I also have multiple domains and redirect ALL of them to my main site. What I do that is especially effective is create videos and post them in social networking sites and link back to the various domains I have. You can search Google for: "buyhdfootage" for example and you will see many of my videos - but my main site is: www.royaltyfreehdvideoclips.com.
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Alan B
Senior SEO and Internet Marketing Consultant at Hey Dude Where's My Site?
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I'd say that it's a mix. For my largest SEO client, we have one main site with a few hundred web pages, properly optimized. The competition in their field is among the fiercest online (PPC ads go for $60 - $90 per click) and we pull out all the stops. While we spend probably 90% of our energy on the main site depth and quality, we do believe in mni-sites.
So we also have several mini sites that link back. It's a great way to control your own 3rd party site back-links, which in today's algorithm for SEO are essential.
We put in a portion of our ongoing time to each mini site to ensure they all rank highly for their niche focus which means each link back has more value than links from "just any old site that has no optimization value", and we can ensure the content relationship between the mini sites and the landing pages we link to on the main site are tightly integrated.
Vital to this is "no duplicate content". And - never allow any mini site to overtake the primary site for the phrases that matter on the mini-site!
At the end of the day, the primary site comes up for dozens of phrases high up and for some even in the #1 and #2 slot at Google. Each of the mini sites also comes up high - either just below the main site, or close enough that we know it's providing high value in the links back.
As for traffic, we do occasionally see conversions that come directly through a mini site - more often though someone finds the mini site, clicks through to the main site, then contacts our client. Most often, it's purely about link value, which is why we created them.
Be aware though - we put in about 80 - 100 hours a month in maintaining just the main site on this one. Every month - since 11 of 2006. Most of our clients can't afford this kind of leveraged effort, so for the vast majority we work solely on one site, or at the most, one main site and a supporting blog.
So I'd say if you have the energy and resources and can devote enough time to the main site it can most definitely help to tap those other domains.
Edna R suggests this expert on this topic:
Jay L
Co-Founder, Managing Partner at BMFAgency, LLC - Corporate Communications Management Company
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Sebastien,
Alan and Kevin make some great points.
As both an SEO expert and premium geo-niche domainer, I understand you desire to leverage those Internet properties. It is probably best to keep as much of your content in sub-domains off the main site. If you want to leverage your other domains, i'm not advocating, but you CAN re-use that content from your sub-domains (it's grey, but you can) to your custom domains, as long as you host them on a different server from the main site. Duplicate content is all over the web, but Google defines "duplicate content" as sites having the exact code (design/layout), copy, meta data and all residing on the same server. However....simply creating a "Wagon Wheel" does little good and can set off the spider spam alerts - especially 200 sites. You would want to strategically link them in a daisy chain.
All very complicated and time consuming. Best to simply re-direct and concentrate on the main site.
One thought...you might consider "Franchising" you domains by leasing them to businesses or niche bloggers and requiring a link back. this way somebody else does the work, you get unique content, the domains are utilized for your benefit, they get indexed, and you get to retain ownership.
:)
Jay Lohmann
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Grant S
Senior Account Manager, SEO at The Search Agency
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Definitely develop some of the more obvious domains that target specific and unique niches.
Definitely point some to your main domain.
Decide based on traffic, testing and which domains with what content produce conversions.
Use keyword tool (ie Wordtracker) to find which domains contain popular keywords [Note: Having keywords in domains with relevant optimized content is (one) effective way to attract traffic], marry those with which keywords historically attract a 'will buy' demographic.
Test test test.
React to ROI, don't assume one technique will work for every instance.
Be relevant.
HTH
