The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: November 2008, Volume 7, Issue 11
SEO & Your Domain: The Power of One
by Shannon McCarty, Client Services Manager, iProspect
Everyone wants to dominate the search results, but many marketers make the mistake of creating multiple websites to get the job done.
All the Right Reasons
Having multiple sources of Web content is a valid practice. It makes perfect sense for certain business reasons, including country-specific domains, offline marketing campaign micro-sites, or blogs a company does not want directly affiliated with its corporate site. In essence, the approach works when used for the right reasons.
The Big Misconception
Yet many marketers try and adopt this approach as a means to muscle out the competition from the search results. They figure that since a website can only rank for two organic text listings per search engine results page (SERP), why not create several websites and rule the entire space? Unfortunately, their thinking is faulty.
Consolidation Matters
Rather than spreading links and content across multiple domains as a means of dominating the page, marketers would be better served to focus on a main domain, as a consolidated approach offers a number of benefits. Not only will it help produce a higher quality website, and improve traffic, revenue, and conversions, it will also help create a better user experience. Let’s take a look at three ways a consolidated approach can help:
Resources: The value of search can greatly be affected by its resources. For instance, in many organizations, the search marketing team consists of one person whose responsibilities include researching and obtaining relevant links, content build-out and optimization, PPC strategies and analysis, and social search. Naturally, if you multiply those duties by three or four websites, the efficacy of that resource will decline. Given that, companies should have resources focus on one website. Doing so will boost the quantity and quality of rankings, and improve traffic.
Competition: Marketers often think that lots of websites equals lots of rankings. But what they get is lots of duplicate pages. As a result, they can end-up competing against themselves. Instead of trying to dominate listings on a smaller subset of keywords, marketers should broaden the content on one site to target longer tailed keywords or resource intent queries. Marketers should also optimize existing assets such as articles, blogs, customer reviews, videos, press releases, and product guides. This approach not only eliminates the need to create new content, but also broadens the depth of the website.
User Experience: Companies with multiple domains often try to link the sites to increase link value - which is a valid SEO tactic - but when these sites exist purely for the sake of rankings, it results in a poor user experience. Think about it: How are users supposed to understand one marketing message when they have to navigate through three websites to find the product or resource they are looking for? Conversely, a single domain keeps the user on the site longer. Because users can easily navigate through it, it will likely increase conversions, purchases, and brand research.
Unless used for the right reasons, having multiple sources of web content can be a mistake. Instead, marketers should focus on one domain. Doing so will not only help produce a better website and user experience, it will also improve traffic, revenue, and conversions.
