I have a bunch of doctors asking me these days if 2 websites is a problem.
The logic being that well if one website gets me “x” new customers then 2 will get me double that.
WRONG!
This is 99% of the time a total bone-head move.
You see most of the clicks got the the top spot.
So it is better to have the top spot than the 3rd and 5th or something like this.
AND It is easier to get the top 2 spots with the same site than it is with 2 different sites.
So splitting your effort over two sites is BAD.
And Google is out to try to have you fail at that strategy.
With their most recent updates they have made this strategy even harder.
Also you only get 1 Google Place listing and whichever site you assign that to, gets that credit.
Hiring two different firms that BOTH do a places listing is a violation of Google terms for YOU, not them.
YOU, will get hurt not them.
Find 1 company that you can know and trust.
Don’t jump around from company to company and site to site.
You leave virtual junk and Google does not like it.
Most marketing companies will do nothing to clean that up for you.
So YES 2 websites is a problem. DO NOT DO IT!
Have 1 that kills it, ranking #1 and #2 for all your main keywords.
Then you will have the traffic you need and want.
Then you can focus on conversion rates on 1 site.
Then you can add more traffic with paid advertising.
I hope this makes sense and some of you STOP doing things like this.
You will get more new customers if you listen to me.
Matt, sure if you are going after the same keyword maybe. But niche marketing works and for that multiple lead gen sites work.
Even still, barring places, applying your reasoning would get more clicktgroughs with two sites on page 1.
Hi Dave, Your busines is likely 1 niche. So you keywords are all related. So getting 1 site to rank for all your same niche keywords is easier than nultiple sites rankings for these different words.
It’s a good blog subject for me – I was thinking of creating another website.
It looks like you don’t put much value in having domain names that match keywords e.g. BocaRatonLocal Business.com & BocaRatonFibromyalgia.com.
I thought this was something that unfortunately Google gave some value.
Hi Doc,
Great comment BocaRatonLocal Business.com/Fibromyalgia would be the better route to go to rank for that term.
Cheers,
Matt
Matt,
I disagree. There are multiple niches within Local Business for example. Large informational sites don’t convert as well as targeted niche sites. So as the other doc above suggested it would make sense to build those niche sites with keyword rich urls.
After all google indexes pages not sites. You could just as easily link to those niche sites from your main site as you would any page.
So when I read this post the first thing that popped into my mind was “does this apply to lead generation sites as well?” After reading the article and the first comment I’m not sure. Will my existing site be hurt if I were to have additional lead generation sites?
Hi Dr Ned,
Lead gen sites will be interesting targets of google in the near future I believe. In there attempt to rid the world of spam. I believe that if you are trying to get these lead gen sites to rank organically in addition to your main site you will have issues. The pattern we see is that more and more googel wants companies to have 1 site that houses all the data. You can get sub pages to rank in addition to your home page and that strategy I believe will be the one that works long term.