Can I Have Multiple Websites for my Business?
In today’s era of evolving technology, businesses are finding new ways to diversify their audiences and stand out from others. One way to stand out is having additional websites for a single business. The idea may seem exaggerating but it can be a game changer if applied properly.
So we are going to discuss the specific question of “can I have multiple websites for my business” in detail to let you know what are the specific situations when you may have multiple websites for your business and when you shouldn’t have different websites for business.
When to have Multiple Websites?
There are multiple scenarios which describe that having related websites for a business makes sense. Let’s understand by examples:
- If you are offering services in diverse demographics, then different websites help you to customize your message for a specific audience. For example, if you are selling casual wear and fashionable clothes then you can have two separate websites in order to avoid diluting the brand identity.
- When you are selling two different types of products then websites can help you to get away from confusion. For example, a business selling clothes, shoes and bags would get more benefit if they have different platforms for each.
- Running numerous websites helps you to target niche related keywords which boost the online visibility in search engine results. This method can also help to get more organic traffic and help to rank each website for its specific area.
- Multiple websites for businesses having a global presence for different regions would be beneficial. You can also customize your content depending on the currency, language and local preferences that enhance user experience and increase conversion rates.
Why Should You Have Additional Websites?
As you are aware of scenarios of having related websites. Now we are going to tell you why you should have multiple websites in detail.
Business Preferences:
Prior to having multiple websites, you should ask yourself why you want multiple websites? What’s your reason for having multiple websites or your information is so diverse that it can’t be in a single website? There has to be a valid reason for wanting multiple websites. You can understand it by reading the above discussed points
Moreover, companies also have multiple websites to separate their blogs from e-commerce sales but it can be considered for large businesses. When it comes to small businesses, we suggest using one website but if small businesses have different products then different websites would be beneficial.
Websites for Different Countries:
There are different things to consider when you have to choose the structuring of international websites which include the country code top level domain name like www[.]ebay[.]fr for ebay in France, similarly, www[.]ebay[.]de for Germany.
With this structuring, each international website will be treated separately, having separate domain, domain authority and demands on resources with their maintenance.
Technical Reasons:
It is commonly seen that businesses besides having a separate domain, hosted a subdomain as well such as blog.example.com. For instance, go outdoors have their e-commerce website and have subdomain of blog[.]gooutdoors[.].co.uk. It is very important that the blogs should be hosted on the main domain in the sub folder.
If you choose a subdomain, Google will identify it as another website from your main domain. As a result, the essential authority you acquired on your primary domain won’t be shared with your subdomain. However, it is thought that technical issues restrict content from appearing on the main website.
Going further, businesses which are reluctant to generate information on the primary website might establish a totally different domain focused solely on content publication, using an easy WordPress platform or something comparable.
Dominating Search Results:
Having related websites allows you to dominate the search results, which is popular in large businesses and named as a multiple domain strategy. In the recent update, Google announced the targeted website diversity in search results.
Now Google is only listing a maximum two results per domain for most of the searched queries which allows additional websites to cover up space in the SERP for relevant keywords. Hence, your chances of users clicking on your site increased. Before going further, you have to make sure that you have enough resources to get your website ranked on the first page.
Exact Match Domain Name:
It has been in debate whether or not to include the keyword in the domain name. In a study conducted by SparkToro asked many SEO professionals to know the weight each ranking factor has in Google ranking system to which they replied that keyword in domain name is one of the least important ranking factors. In contrast, other professionals disagree with their statement by saying that it’s the top ranking factor.
So most of the professionals believe that keywords in the domain name is the most important ranking factor and have a huge impact. Google 2012 update reduced the boost, websites were getting because of exact match domain names.
Google algorithm updates tend to improve the search results, and become more focused on high quality content that matches user intent. This means exact domain name has less impact on rankings. So, rather than buying low quality exact match domains, it is better to have a single high quality domain.
Struggles of Managing Multiple Websites:
Having related websites can be beneficial but there are several consequences of having or managing multiple websites.
High Cost:
The simplest reason why you should avoid having additional websites is because it can be expensive. Whether it’s about content writing, SSL certificate, site speed optimization, or ensuring that the website is mobile friendly, all these ultimately increase your task and in some years when you have to redesign your website or update the outdated stuff, you have to pay for both websites instead of one.
Additionally, external links are important for a website to rank and without external links, it becomes very difficult to rank. Having two websites means, you have to put your effort on building links for two websites besides just focusing on one website. If it’s a brand new domain, then it means you would be starting with zero domain authority and the importance of domain authority is not unknown.
UX Issues:
If you are managing different websites then it can negatively impact your user experience and sometimes customers remain unaware that they are visiting the same business.
If you develop numerous sites for the same product but targeting various phases of the conversion funnel, you cannot guarantee that the user will reach the correct site at the appropriate time. You’d be more successful by sticking to having a single website as prominent as possible and delivering everything your client requires.
Duplicate Content:
If you are providing the same services or products within your multiple websites then you can have thin or duplicate content issues. If you are just spinning content for your website, then you have to think for a bit about why you should have additional websites.
High quality, engaging content is universally accepted and it ranks as well, using spinned content can minimize your chances of getting ranked.
Cannibalizing Issue:
Besides managing related websites, you have to keep a track on the SEO performance as well. If you don’t manage your keyword research and optimization properly then your website can face cannibalization issues.
If not done properly then your websites will start competing with each other for the same keywords that can impact your overall SEO performance.
Best Practices:
If you have multiple websites, or are thinking about it, ask yourself first to know why you need different websites in the first place. If you don’t know the answer and want the best way to deal with them then we suggest merging the several domains.
There are several ways to maintain several domains but all of them need resources so do you have them? Several multi-national companies have multiple resources to maintain numerous websites successfully, while for small businesses it is suggested to have a single strong authoritative domain.