Best Practices - SEO - Multiple Sites

January 8th, 2007

What Are Best Practices - SEO for Multiple Sites?
Laura Thieme
January 8, 2007

I’m often asked what are best practices if you want to optimize multiple sites.  We’ve seen numerous multiple site penalties that don’t mean to spam or be guilty of duplicate content but they become duplicate content penalty fodder for the search engines.  That said, I thought I’d create a multiple site best SEO practices.  I will also link to other resources on this topic as well.

First of all, ask why do you want multiple websites?  What is the main reason for creating multiple websites?  Is to support separate business entities, products, or audiences? 

If so, then consider the following:

  • Do you really need separate websites for each product?  Are you unable to support this from one main website?
  • If you are determined to create multiple websites for multiple products, then you should be willing to hire the following:
  • A separate webmaster for each site
  • A separate call center for each site
  • A separate fulfillment center for each site
  • A separate marketing team for each site
  • A separate office manager for each site in order to keep your billing separate, etc.
  • Does this sound like this is going to get expensive?  It will, if you’re planning to do it right.
  • Are you doing this to increase your chances of showing up in the search engines?  If so, please consider the following:
  • There are companies who succeed with this multiple site strategy if they are smart.  We do not personally support this strategy in most cases. 
  • We’ve seen companies who create a multiple site strategy through affiliate marketing, by signing up and training affiliates to create multiple feeder sites.  This may work for a while, but depending on how it’s managed, the main company and its affiliates may eventually get in trouble with the search engines.

It’s difficult to create a multiple site strategy best SEO practices without knowing the above reasons, however, I am creating a few best practices that can be applied regardless of your intent.

Your Pledge to Avoid Spam Penalty:

  • Pledge you will not create duplicate content across multiple websites for any reason
  • Learn more about duplicate content and how it’s defined from the gurus at each search engine, like Matt Cutts, or Tim Converse (who is leaving Yahoo) or his replacement.  I’ll link to posts and add more here later.
  • Pledge you will have different page titles on every site and internal web pages
  • Pledge you will not sit all sites on the same IP address
  • Pledge you will not place all domains on grouped IP addresses
  • Pledge you will create separate content and marketing strategies for each site
  • First Example: 
  • Two websites
  • No duplicate content
  • Both link to the other
  • Website A (Content Website):  Sole purpose - reasons you should buy organic and environment friendly products
  • Website B (Ecommerce Site):  Sole purpose - to sell organic and environment friendly products

Website A:

  • There is no duplicate content, as they merely link to the products from the reasons you should buy organic
  • Includes consumer product reviews or organic and environment friendly products
  • Scientists write in their respective blogs on a frequent basis
  • Promotes a variety of ecommerce sites, or one, that sell the products they believe in or endorse
  • Videos of environmental issues
  • Calendar of environment friendly events - ways to get involved in your community to do more, etc.
  • YouTube and MySpace links, blog links
  • Links to NationalGeographic, Nature, etc.

Website B:

  • Sells ecommerce products
  • Merely links to Website A
  • Does not house Website A content on its IP, or domain  name
  • Has shopping cart

In the above scenario, this is an acceptable form of multiple site SEO strategy.  Both may do well in the search engines, if they are optimized accordingly. 

Keyword Strategy for Website A (Content Site):

The content site should have separate keyword phrases, in most cases.  It might try to show up for things related to the environment and what issues are related to buying organic products.  The site owner and search marketing agency should collaborate on a different SEO strategy for the content site. 

Multiple Site SEO Costs:

Keep in mind that if you’re paying your SEO company to manage one site, in its original contract, you’ll need a new contract for additional sites.  According to MarketingSherpa’s SEO Buyer’s Guide 2007, top of the line firms will charge upwards of $50,000 per month for multiple site strategies, or complex SEO strategies. 

Posted in Uncategorized.

 

Related Posts

Leave a Reply