Dual website strategy

[Alpine9]

We have two websites (different businesses) in the technology sector that sell the same products on the same platform (OSC) but have different branding. We have tried to make the static content different and the user generated content is different. SEO as largely different. But the one site has much better rankings than the other.

Whilst the under performing site is not responsive yet, I need to decide whether to merge the two businesses into one or continue on the two separate websites approach. I would only pursue the latter approach and invest further time and effort into this under performing website if I knew I was "on the right" track.

My SEO knowledge is not extensive and so I would be interested in any views the community has?

I note that kogan.com.au and dicksmith.com.au have a similar dual website approach (same company) and they are both major brands in Australia.

I thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have.

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Marc,

The answer to this question really depends on just how much effort you want to put into the two websites and frankly what your resources are. There are many companies that successfully run different operations, Zappos and 6pm is one example.

The upsides:

1. Different target market - allows for different branding appealing to separate segments of the market
2. Different pricing strategy - allows for one site to be a 'marketplace' and the other, a full price site.
3. Different locations - One may target England, say, the other Wales & Scotland.
4. Dominate Google - Both sites may appear at the top of SERPS if enough SEO is thrown at them - therefore increasing real estate in top 10.

So there are definite upsides to having a dual site approach.

The Downsides:

1. The work involved in building and maintaining two websites. You have already said that one of them is not responsive, so I assume that is the case because you either didn't have the time or the funds to make it so.
2. Ongoing operational operations - uploading of content and rewriting for the two sites, banners, product photographs, ALTs, promotions - keeping everything separate will be a daily challenge.
3. NAPS - presumably the name & address is identical for the two sites, what about the host and IP addresses?
4. Maintaining a balance of attention to the two operations and serving the niches they are targetted at.
5. Marketing costs associated with two separate sites and brandings.
6. Marketplace links to Amazon, Ebay etc and associated costs.
7. Socials - maintaining two separate groups of Social Media accounts.

I ran an online shoe store for many years and we set up a 'sister' site which focused purely on Women's fashion. I quickly found that we lacked the resources to run two websites and ended up redirecting all of the second site links back to the first - just because of all the headaches involved.

If I were you and reading the 'non-responsive' comment, I would can that site and focus all of your attention on to the one main site:

1. 301 redirect the whole site page by page to the main website so that you preserve any backlink juice that may be pointing to it.
2. Write great original content 300+ words at brand and category level.
3. Write great original content 150+ words at product level.
4. Make sure ALL support pages are fully written, and optimised.
5. Make sure all META is optimised in terms of character length and relevance.
6. Make sure your site speed is as good as it can be.
7. All image Alts are filled in
8. Merge Socials

Frankly without going on, just make sure you cross all the Ts and dot all the i's when it comes to SEO and I am pretty sure that the combined effort of running one great site will far outweigh the schizoid way you are doing it now!

There are of course other issues, resources - do you actually want two brands? along with all the marketing costs? is that sensible from a business point of view?

I hope that helps to give you some encouragement.

Regards

Nigel

Carousel Projects

[EGOL]

Nigel has provided a comprehensive answer and was very generous to put so much effort and time into it.   I agree with his assessment.

I am always tempted to "start another website".  However, if I do that I must take my efforts away from websites that are already successful and put that effort into websites that are starting with zero content, zero fans, zero visibility, zero resources of any kind.

If you can afford hire and toss another team of high quality people at improving the sluggish site then maybe you can pull it off, but if your primary website is not dominating the SERPs in your area, then I would probably put that same team to work on the primary site.

I would not start a second website or put resources into a secondary website unless my main website is dominating the SERPs and then I would still be working to raise the bar to fend off anyone out there who is getting any ideas about coming after my turf.

[Alpine9]

Thanks Nigel for your very generous response and thanks Egol for your confirmation as well.

We do have a small team and we are not dominating rankings in our sector yet, so your point is well made. From what you are saying, it seems there are no technical limitations in terms of search engines penalising the under performing site (originally it was a copy of the main site). It seems to come down purely to a well constructed, designed and marketed site.

So thanks again for your really wise words - it has been an enormous help

Marc