Online Pharmacy Client

[digitalarts]

So... Have a client with a physical pharmacy in the UK, they are looking to branch out and start selling online... Primarily high value 'embarrassing medicines' etc... The have an existing companynamepharmacy.co.uk domain that has acted as a brochure site for the past 4 years (thats the domain age) still with low domain authority etc but they've also purchased a keyword match domain citynameonlinepharmacy.co.uk which they thought would be better to use...

They are fully prepared for a reasonable wait on the organic listings and will head up the project with PPC and Google shopping integration which is known to be successful for other similar online pharmacies...

Anyone tackled building an online pharmacy site from the ground up with any advice, specifically on the domain front, there is a trade off between the newly registered keyword match domain and the 4 year old company name match - Its clear with a pharma industry site we need to build trust so need to tick every box on that front...

[MattJanaway]

I have built a website for a pharmaceutical company but the problem is that my client was a trade supplier, not a retail seller - he was not interested in SEO at all for the site.

There are some important points you raise though. Obviously it would be easier to rank an exact match domain name but the reverse side of the coin is the building trust using the company name and reputation... This is vital for the market they are in if they are looking to increase revenue by using an eCommerce website - there are so many spammy sites in this market. The domain age on the old site your client has should be important and help it rank quicker.

There is no reason why (over time) you cannot rank well with a website without its main keyword in the domain name, it will just take more effort and a better/stronger strategy.

It might be worth looking at brainstorming ideas at this point... Why not keep the old domain with the company name in and use it for the main eCommerce website but then look at creating a niche domain for the client with the keyword in the URL?

One thing I would say is to be very careful with SEO in this market. Due to so many rogues in the industry for medicine there is so much spam out there. Getting good quality relevant links might be hard, just be careful where you get your links from.

EDIT: Perhaps the last sentence did not raise the point I was looking to make. The point I was trying to raise is that this industry generally uses very black hat techniques when optimising and are looking to make quick £££ until their site gets sandboxed. Just make sure you are careful with the techniques.