Yesterday, I spent the day reviewing 3 web sites for one client. He wanted to know where to go from here – do we keep the 3 sites, amalgamate them into 1, or toss them all and start over?
Here’s the deal on multiple web sites –
If you offer different services . . . or, like this client, offer services and products . . . you’re certainly welcome to do it all on one web site. There are, however, advantages to breaking into 2 sites, especially if:
- You’re introducing a new product or new service
- You’re going after a different audience with a service you provide (i.e. he offers help for service industry professionals, but also does keynotes and retreats for the entities that cater to service industry professionals.)
The greatest advantage lies in the fact that you can manipulate key words and On-Pagee SEO (search engine optimization around a specific theme rather than a whole gob of information on one site. This further niches your site and, consequently, the worldwide audience out there looking for you. (And, remember what I’ve said – niche-ing DOWN is the BEST thing you can do. The more you niche, the larger the numbers of specific prospects coming in your door!)
You’re also able to build more effective and strategic blitz campaigns and PPC campaigns around a specific product or service on a single site.
And, it’s easier to pull in joint ventures, Affiliates and Super Affiliates with lists that more closely cater to a specific thing you’re offering.
Be careful, though, that you don’t cut corners on a second site. A few pointers:
- The search engine robots still prefer a site with more than 5 pages – in many cases, engines won’t even rank a site with a handful of pages, or they’ll take MUCH longer to pay attention to it. Be sure your site has a few pages of strong, keyword rich content.
- You can use one shopping cart for 2 or more sites, but be sure your clients know that the cart is a representative for each of the sites you’re posting. You don’t want to stall them in confusion when they’re so close to the finish line.
- Carefully research your key words and their density as they are specific to your site’s theme to construct your site’s content, metas, page titles and page descriptions. Just slapping something up there (or slapping nothing at all up there) defeats the purpose of creating more than one site. If you’d like to discuss the question of “One Site or More” and have me take a look at what you’ve got cookin’, just email me at Diane@ArmitageInc.com