Hosted content vs Dedicated website (for large piece of content)

[ESL_Education]

There is one question that keep bugging us and for which we are looking for a logical answer – to put it short, in which context(s) is it preferable to publish original content on a company website vs on a dedicated external platform with its own URL?

To give a little more details: we an education company that provides languages course abroad and that functions like a specialised travel agency. Each trip is very specific – it depends on people's language level, objectives, budget, etc. – so we provide tailor-made advice for each of our students. Our site is not an e-commerce site, and a typical call-to-action is a request for a 1-to-1 interview with one of our agents, or a quote request for a language trip project. The top conversion for us is an enrolment for a language course abroad.

We have a corporate websites structure where we have 1 website per locale where we operate, which means 14 websites in 7 different languages. We produce smaller pieces of content for these websites in a dedicated section – the rest of the website being mostly a presentation of our products, services and destinations – but here we intend to create a very large Quiz which will be based on multiple audio files. The content will be translated into multiple languages (likely 10 different languages) and will require some rather heavy development. We intend to add sections for scoreboards, stats, a log-in section (probably Facebook), etc.

This sounds to us like something we should host on a specific URL, but then how can we make the most of the SEO benefits that we will (hopefully) get with such content? We plan to have an about section where we explain a little bit who we are, where we will probably link back to our corporate websites, but of course we want our project to live for itself and to be as far from commercial as possible – while still making the most of the SEO benefits.

How can we do this in the most subtle / logical way? Would it be better to host our Quiz on our corporate domains?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Maëlle

[ClaytonJ]

To be clear you are creating one large piece of content that cuts across all 14 domains (as distinct from previous content) - hence you are questioning whether you should consider adding a 15th domain.  If this is incorrect let me know.

If correct then to optimize SEO benefits it should be hosted on a current or your primary domain - not create a new domain. Adopting that course there are a myriad of discussions to be had on how to effect same on a current or primary domain. Ensure content not duplicated etc. optimize benefits.

So the short answer answer would be host on a current domain. Though I add I am unfamiliar with the sites or consequences so if the primary site where the "content" is to be hosted is german this may upset the english visitors...many variables you need to consider - the variables maybe overpowering and require the 15th domain but I would try an steer clear of the 15th if possible, certainly if a once off.

[ESL_Education]

Hi John,

Thank you for your response. In fact, the 14 domains have similar content (our language courses portfolio) but this new domain would be just the quiz – so the content would be completely different. If we were to get a new domain, it would be one without our brand name (unlike the 14 other ones) but rather with our project's name. It would be a multi-language website, from which I would point to our various corporate websites from a section in each language.

Does this makes sense?

[ClaytonJ]

Yes.

Ok on a purely technical aspect in relation to SEO it is better to include the new content in a corporate site. I assume the content is to be marketed heavily and hence on a worst case base you build up some backlinks and and a bit of domain authority for your corporate website. If the content succeeds well then the ripple effect to the other sites will be profound.

On a brand new domain to start from scratch - new domain, no history and no backlinks is a far harder task, but certainly not un-achievable. Personally I believe you should try and limit new domains as practically it increases your required SEO output in this case by 1/15th. So just to keep level you need to work an extra 3 hours each week with a new domain...

I just had a quick look at https://www.esl-education.org which i assume is the parent site.   What you could do - which will help your seo generally is review your title tags and H1. This moz article is highly relevant.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

You will get some quick uplift with the right keywords.  Hope that assists.

[ESL_Education]

Hi John,

Thank you for your answer; unfortunately I am not completely satisfied with it if I may say, as I am not looking for generic SEO resources / responses here, but rather a tactical answer on the advantages and disadvantages we could find in detaching our content from our brand.

The website that should be considered for this is www.esl.co.uk – sorry I was not going to write URLs here, so please do remove it if it has to be removed – and the 13 other versions, all hosted on local URLs. The site you mentioned above is our group website.

[ClaytonJ]

On your comment on generic advice as I am not 100% familiar with your brand strategy accordingly I do not like to give "hard advice".  There are too many variables.

That said I will do the best with what provided.

In short there are zero SEO tactical advantages to separating content from brand. Perhaps if the content site is a trick to get someone thinking that the branded site is independent and then refer to your branded domain - about the only time I would consider or recommend it.  Is that the case?  Hence there are almost zero advantages to setting up a separate site. Site maintenance is hard work, and the doubling of SEO efforts foolhardy.  Why have two houses if you only live in one? Unless of course you are rich and it is of no consequence.

If I was advising you I would suggest it is not even worth considering. The domain authority for https://www.esl.co.uk is 25 - which is weak for a specialized site.  In short you are not rich enough to afford the second house, the main domain is a straw house at present. If the domain authority was 60+ I might be with you. First thing I worry about is susceptibility to competition.

Given such a low domain authority for the prime domain I would be working hard in improving my link profile and domain authority. Every marketing dollar matters. Focus on building https://www.esl.co.uk into a dominant power - at present however a strong competitor coming into your space would have a powerful impact on search - as it would be easy to outrank. That said great looking site, well optimized from my quick look - needs some strong linking work.

Hopefully not to blunt and a little clearer but happy to answer.

[ESL_Education]

Hello John,

Thanks again for your help – it is much clearer now. We don't want to trick our users, but we do want them to use the piece of content we have created without being overwhelmed by the brand. What we're probably going to so is host the content on our corporate URL but create a whole new design – much less branded  – for that content.