Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks so much, Miriam! Your response is right where I was thinking. Makes complete sense. Now, to have the conversation with the client to come up with some other solutions. Cheers! - Patrick

Hey Mozzers! I'm working with a client who has 2 websites (different URLs completely), which one is for all parts and the other is for accessories only. They have multiple brick and mortar locations throughout the US and have done a nice job creating Google My Business pages for each and all verified.

Their question is will it benefit them to create and verify another GMB page with same address, but place in "Suite B", a new phone number and apply the other URLs for the accessories site. The business name would also be different, but similar meaning Business 1 = ABC where as Business 2 = ABC Accessories. Their goal would be to try to have both rank or display to improve their local SEO.

In theory it sounds like it will work given NAP would be satisfied within the GMB, but wanted to get the Moz community thoughts on this first before moving forward. Look forward to the replies.

• Patrick

Hey mag777! Happy New Year! Great question and one I'm asked a lot from my business advisory groups, clients and referral partners. It's one that undoubtedly always comes up in conversation when talking about either acquiring new domains or revamping a website... "Should we use the WWW or NON-WWW domain?"

In my 12+ years of web consulting and SEO, it has boiled down to a preference ideology. As mentioned by seoman10 in this thread, it could be seen as a shorter, easier to remember URL. When marketing the domain, you'd always want to confirm the WWW is redirected to the NON-WWW if this is the path you choose to take. And visa versa NON-WWW --> WWW.

As Gaston mentions too, check out your competitors URL structure. It's a quick glimpse up to the address bar while you are already doing your competitive research. Do some searches in Google as well for your website and competitors to see how much of the URL does or could display. Moz.com doesn't use WWW. They could get away with it because it's so short. I on the other hand almost need to with https://whiteboardcreations.com since it's a much longer domain. Keep this in mind for those domains you're working on, too.

From an SEO school of thought and how I now operate, I choose the NON-WWW simply because we can get just a little more of the URL to show in Google SERPs, if we're targeting inner pages to provide a hint more of visual for the searcher. The URL string matches more closely to the Title and Description. That is the way I look at this strategy.

Here is a quick video from Matt Cutts a few years back... should ease your concerns over redirects  
https://youtu.be/Filv4pP-1nw 

Either way, the websites you work on for yourself or your clients will be fine as long as you are consistent for the entire site and redirects are tested and confirmed functional.

Cheers to a successful 2018 for you and everyone else reading!

• Patrick @ Whiteboard Creations (Apex, NC)

Makes perfect sense, Paul! Thank you for the detailed account and what to be aware of. I was already planning something along these lines. The trick is getting people to see the new page once they are redirected. I'll work on this and a header bar or a pop up window may work best. All URLs will be redirected appropriately as well as it's standard practice in shutting down one site to pass authority to another. Thanks again for your insight! - Patrick

Awesome! I was confident I'd get that reply, but wanted to get a 2nd opinion and really appreciate you confirming my initial thoughts.

Thanks, Kevin!

Hi Mozzers,
I have a new client who bought a dental practice from another dentist. The old dentist has a website www.olddentistsite.com (not a real domain, just an example) and the new dentist wants there to be a message on the old dentists website Home page stating how the practice was bought.

My idea just came up... most would do a message on that domain. However, would you recommend I actually create a new page in the new dentists website which the old website domain redirects to

ie: www.olddentistsite.com [redirects to >] www.newdentistsite.com/olddentistsite/ and then on this page we display a nice message about the acquisition, scheduling new patients, new logo, meet the new Dr, a video, better office hours, etc... Is this something the visitors will enjoy or get a good feeling from?

Let me know your thoughts on which option is best to implement. Looking for a few quick replies!! Thanks in advance everyone! - Patrick

Thank you for your valuable input, Laura and Miriam! I have read through all of the links Laura shared and then some more I found on doing other searches on the subject. From the jist of it, it's exactly what you hit on Miriam. I've got some more due diligence on this one and prep work to effectively communicate with my business partners on the most appropriate strategy.

My only challenge with having 1 website that encompasses all the services is that we are then limiting our link building, directory, citation and category output/selection, which drastically limits how we would be able to build any type of authority in one given service area to compete others who are more focused just on that service, ie: carpet cleaning or roofing. Not to mention, receiving valid, real reviews for a specific service.

This is going to be tricky, but an overall great exercise and case study!

• Patrick

Alex,
I agree with EGOL. Many of those domain extensions aren't being used or promoted at this time. They may in the future, however, they are very new to the marketing world and people may get confused or think they are spammy. I'd stick with a .com, .co, .net at this time, if available.

On the otherhand, there have been many case studies on this very topic. Even a post here on Moz. See them below as they are highlighting many valid points. In short, Google doesn't really care what domain you are using, so long as you are creating value on the web for their searchers and building authority for the domain and its pages. It's yours and your client's call to pursue that "builders" extension or not. I'd recommend a strategy to back it up, in order to justify the efforts needed.

• http://searchengineland.com/google-explains-how-they-handle-the-new-top-level-domains-tlds-225671
• https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2433834/case-study-will-new-domain-extensions-provide-an-seo-boost
• https://moz.com/ugc/an-seos-guide-to-acquiring-new-gtlds
• https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253408
• https://ceo.xyz/rank-in-google/

Hope this was helpful! - Patrick

Hi Mozzers! I have a lot of knowledge in local search, G+ page setup/optimization, etc, etc... However, I'm about to begin a business based around "home services". The brand will be ABC Home Services as the umbrella. Then under it will be the individual services like "ABC Carpet Cleaning" "ABC Roofing", etc... Each service will have it's own website for optimization purposes and local search authority building as well as the services will be developed over the course of a couple years ie: carpet cleaning would go up 1st, then the next service and so on...

I have purchased all of the domains I want for the services to focus on. What do you recommend I do in terms of setting up Gmail accounts/G+ accounts? Individual service related Gmail accounts and have a main "ABC Home Services" Google account and then add in the service G+ pages over time?

I'm open to any questions, but trying to make this the most efficient for me and my team and also the best if can be for local optimization goals and criteria. Thank you! - Patrick

Thanks so much for the response, Kane.

She is very particular in the content placed on her website. I didn't work with her on her website or her existing pages, navigation, and content, so I'm coming in fresh and from what I know, she was tough to deal with on the content portions.

Adding more pages about her services probably isn't realistic as she doesn't dive into her "services" on the website nor does she want to. She has this false sense that her clients KNOW what she does and will search for her "method". Yet, when you Google her "method", nothing shows.

This led me to talk with her about and be very honest with her, that her name, her method and her book need to be the focal point. So, when people do hear about her, and then Google her, they will get the bigger picture vs just searching for a service keyword and her showing up.

Another challenge is, her budget is low. It will increase, but have to prove it works. I explained this is a limiting factor, but will see where it goes.

We will focus on blog articles, a few press releases, a couple SlideShare presentations about her method and book outline and wish we could do videos, but she will never do a video, but she enjoys and does do speaking engagements.

We also discussed getting her to do more podcast type interviews and try to get her in front of bloggers or podcasters as she speaks very well and would be comfortable doing that.

This will make for an interesting case study if it all works out the way I want it to. One thing I won't allow is for it to ruin or soil my reputation or our mutual brand consultant's image.

Thanks again, Kane! I do appreciate your input. - Patrick

I'm getting ready to take on a new client for SEO, but she is having a hard time understanding I'd like to rank her for "Her" and her new book, rather than keywords for her ambiguous keywords which show very little to no search volume from Keyword Planner data.

• Her website and domain name are only 4 months old
• Her book launches sometime in December (most likely January 2016)
• Her services (she's a consultant) provide little keyword volume
• She is persuaded she needs to rank for her service keywords
• I feel strongly we need to get her name, her method/approach and her book optimized
• She is seemingly difficult to work with, but once I build trust in SEO for her, so will be a great, long client
• Her consulting services are based on Change and Transition for wealthy individuals going through career change, divorce, pay increase, pay decrease, depression, children, etc... targeting Executives, C-Level Execs

In this situation, what would you all do? How would this website or person even be optimized? Blog articles? Press releases? Guest blogging? Video blogs? Podcasts? It's a tricky one and hoping the Moz community can lend some ideas as this type of SEO would be new for me, yet I'm up for the challenge!

Thank you in advance and look forward to your replies! - Patrick

Hey! Yes, we made the switch to SSL and everything went smooth. We set up our 301 redirects and submitted to Google right away. No real loss in traffic and our rankings for the 100+ keywords we monitor either remained the same or increased a little over the first couple months. So, that was pleasant to see and experience.

The real test is when we finish and launch the new design, however, we will be working to keep our URL structure the same, but will be adding many more pages to the site focused on more educational/SEO friendly content. Not really caring if searchers stumble across it in their browsing, but moreso that Google indexes the content for our targeted keywords those pages are designed to capture and rank for (inner landing pages).

As long as we're keeping our authoritative pages un-drastically changed, the URL remains the same and the content is about the same, we shouldn't experience much loss in rankings of traffic. If anything, we should see new keywords ranking very well in a short amount of time and our traffic increasing. We'll see come end of 2015, into 2016!

Andy, great tip on the WP image URLs!! Honestly, that never crossed our mind and will be sifting through to find them and update them all.

I really appreciate the feedback on the rank increase. I would enjoy seeing that for some of the other keywords we see lingering on the top of Page 2... hopefully see those get a little push to Page 1.

We installed the DV SSL yesterday and working through the redirects. We should be finished tomorrow and have all testing completed and verified by end of the week.

All in all, a great new experience for an older domain with some good authority built up. Thanks again!

• Patrick

Thanks, Chris! Yes, we are working through the force redirects as the SSL just went through yesterday. A great learning experience and hopefully will have it all resolved soon. Working closely with WP Engine tech guys has been a breath of fresh air too. - Patrick

Thanks for your input, Patrick! I actually referenced your post for another client, so I'm glad it is applicable to a HTTPS update as well.

Hey Mozzers!
We're going to be moving are main company site from http://whiteboardcreations.com > https://whiteboardcreations.com and wanted to get some of your quick tips for items we need to consider. We are working on a new web redesign now and keeping in WordPress. A couple facts for your info... We have read a lot about it, but wanted to get some quick tips we need to take into account from your points of view.

1. March 2010 domain age
2. Ranks very well locally for our targeted keywords around web design, WordPress, SEO, social media, blog writing, web maintenance
3. Not many of our competitors, especially the SEO competitors, have moved to HTTPS
4. Site is hosted at WP Engine
5. Going to be purchasing a Domain Validated SSL... Is there any advantage to an Extended Validated SSL in Google's eye/mind?
6. Should we expect rank decrease or increase?
7. Anything else we should expect or prepare for from your experiences?

Thank you!
Patrick

EGOL, I agree!

I have no idea what the original question that was posted, which Patrick replied to, but, his response still helped me out. He actually linked to this thread from my question I posted a few days ago.

I'll be sure to keep from deleting my question so others can find it potentially useful

• (the other) Patrick

Thank you, Patrick! I'll check all of these out and share all aspects with the clients so they know what potentially lies ahead in terms of rebranding and using a new, different domain name.

Really appreciate the article references too. - Patrick McCoy

Great feedback here, Patrick! And thank you for pointing me to this thread from my question.

• Patrick McCoy

Hey Mozzers,
I received a call on Friday from a 6 attorney law office who have been my client for a long time. They have an established brand/domain in their market which isn't very big, but has a lot of competition.

2 of the attorneys are leaving to start their own firm and they want to remove a letter from their name abbreviation, thus their domain name as well. So, the other partners want to change the domain to reflect this.

They want to buy a EMD [city]lawyers.com for about $1,600 along with some others to protect their new brand and name.

I have a good idea as to what I need to do, BUT would love to hear advice from the community for this type of drastic change. 301 redirects? New Google Analytics code or same just different profile? Webmasters verifications? Content from old site? Old domain forwarding or keep active for a little bit? Is not the time to get them an SSL?

Also, what should I prepare them for in terms of website traffic expectations and Google authority drops or remains the same? I know their Moz DA/PA will drop to 1/1, but anything else to look out for?

Thank you in advance!
Fellow Pro Member - Patrick