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I am working on a site that specialises in <tech services> in London. The company wants to move into different areas of the country and have bought several other keyword rich domain names, such as 'blue-widgets-oxford.co.uk', 'blue-widgets-reading.co.uk' and so on.
Its my job to get these sites ranking well for the keywords, and as quick as possible (of course!). I wanted to know your thoughts on the best way to get ranked for these sites, keeping away from doorway pages and black-hat SEO, to avoid being penalised.
I don't want to put up a copy of the current (or older) version of the site under the new domains because of 1) duplicate content and 2) it will just look bad to visitors because the original site is ranking well for generic keywords, however I don't really want to make 4 or 5 different sites that link back to the original site for all of the good content, or individual sites that more or less regurgitate the original site's content.
What is the best way of doing this? A lot of competitors seem to stick up either doorways or duplicate content, but I really don't want to have to do that to rank well - I want to do it the honest way!
Any thoughts on how best to achieve this?
Thanks in advance,
Spongy.
[edited by: caveman at 6:57 am (utc) on Mar. 27, 2008]
[edit reason] Removed specifics [/edit]
Welcome to WebmasterWorld if no one's said so yet. ;-)
I think you've sorta intuited the answer to your own question:
1) I don't want to put up a copy of the current (or older) version of the site under the new domains because of 1) duplicate content and 2) it will just look bad to visitors
2) I don't really want to make 4 or 5 different sites that link back to the original site for all of the good content, or individual sites that more or less regurgitate the original site's content
Is the company branded as a London company, i.e., either in the actual brand name or in the domain name? If so I can see why they thought it might be good to use this tactic (i.e., they're stuck with the London geo to some extent).
But if this is the same company ... and same service ... and same site contents, having different domains just for different cities is fairly spammy right out of the gate. For that reason, it's a fairly high risk strategy unless you can find ways to really differentiate the local sites and businesses. Plus, it takes time to grow new sites.
It would be better if possible to leverage the good will, site authority, etc from the existing site, and build out the existing site with pages or sections addressing the expansion areas.
Or so it seems from what you've said so far.
