Multi-Locations Business Internet Presence

[KevnJr]

We are at a crossroad and it's time to decide which direction to travel. We had 4 physical locations represented by 3 websites, August 1st we now have 6 addresses and are going to redesign our websites. Heritage Printing .com is our primary and does very well in DC for printing & signage. Heritage Printing Charlotte .com does well in NC for signs.

How would you proceed?

1. Build 2 more websites for a total of 5: Heritage Custom Signs & Heritage Custom Signs DC .coms
2. Build a unified site under Heritage Printing .com (w/ subdomains or locations folders)

I fear losing our Internet Presence and Page Rank w/ Google by unifying but also fear fueling the ever growing fragmentation of our brand. FYI: We recently Trade Marked Heritage Printing & our logo

So fellow Mozzers, what do you recommend and how would you proceed?

TY in advance

KJr

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kevin!

I apologize for not noticing your thread earlier. Don't know how I missed it!

You are describing so well what happens when a multi-site approach begins to get out of hand. While you could, of course, run 5 different websites, the long term health of the brand is likely going to be best served by consolidation, with proper redirects being set up from the old sites to the new umbrella site, and citations being corrected to reflect the change of URL. You'll likely want to dedicate good resources to earning some new links, while you're at it, to the main site, to strengthen your hand, and a dedicated review acquisition campaign would be smart to throw into this mix, too.

Could you lose rankings? Yes, it's possible, but you can mitigate this as much as possible with proper redirects.

The major benefit of consolidation will be that, going forward, every single action you take will go to strengthening the brand, rather than you having to slice that up 5 different ways. Your goal will be to become the dominant player in your city for everything you do with an incredibly powerful website backed up with a unified marketing plan.

I do recommend going with folders rather than subdomains. It's simpler.

Hoping you'll get some other opinions from our community, and that this one helps. Wishing you luck in the work ahead!