how many sites can a client have?

[findtim]

I've seen a real trend with my clients in 2013 wanting more domains developed for ONE CORE business.

dare I say EMD's !

I've got a fair few on 3, a couple on 5, 6 and 7 domains and these are each real websites with many pages focusing in on different aspects of their business/es

I have a 1 domain with 20+ microsites, another 1 domain with 10 landing pages

its a real mix, they just keep coming back

but yesterday I had a call saying " hey tim, love the site you did for us last year, we want to kinda scrap it and totally redo it "

first time that's happened to me, I'm just wondering if anyone else is getting this kind of trend with businesses, I know large corporates do it but these are SMB's I deal with.

I've also been promoting more and more for clients to purchase better domain names and the response has been good, far better then just 2 years ago.

this simple suggestion to present clients has been bringing me lots of extra work, win win

so what other marketing ideas do other members have?

tim

 

[FirstPageResults]

Do these clients add new content, analyse and continually improve their existing sites?

I've always felt it's better for SME's to concentrate on doing just a single website right. Generally speaking there is always room for improvement. And if it's working quite well, then ramp up the inbound channels. But even then, there would always be room for improvement IMO.

As an example - I'm currently doing some consulting for a SME. They used content marketing to targeted several niche areas in their vertical some time ago. Because of that they do quite well with organic search, and they get enough leads to keep them busy.

Having said that, the vast majority of visitors aren't engaged, so there is a huge opportunity to take the existing traffic and increase the conversion rate.

 

[findtim]

Do these clients add new content, analyse and continually improve their existing sites?

I've always felt it's better for SME's to concentrate on doing just a single website right. Generally speaking there is always room for improvement. And if it's working quite well, then ramp up the inbound channels. But even then, there would always be room for improvement IMO.

As an example - I'm currently doing some consulting for a SME. They used content marketing to targeted several niche areas in their vertical some time ago. Because of that they do quite well with organic search, and they get enough leads to keep them busy.

Having said that, the vast majority of visitors aren't engaged, so there is a huge opportunity to take the existing traffic and increase the conversion rate.

the answer is NO 95% of the time even though I tell them that this is part of the tactic and they need to allocate time to it just like any marketing practice, very frustrating.

its kind of like building houses people never live in and plant gardens !

I feel ok myself about it as I advise them STRONGLY beforehand THEIR effort needed in the future and they say " yes yes yes......... we'll get susan to do it...... I think she knows how to blog and facebook......." but never do do do, so I always make sure I have it all documented in emails, instructions, passwords, etccccc

the stupid thing is many of these sites keep working because they are EMD's so there is no urgency from the clients to improve the sites.

I sent an email to one client and said I wanted him to check all details on his network of 20 sites as its been 2 years since the build and got no reply, I sent it again and he said he'll "get onto it" and we have had many other emails but no feedback so how often do I need to keep asking !!!

I've since built another 2 sites for him !

just record all communication I guess for the time when they drop off the 1st page and ask WHY

80% of people who come to me TELL me they need a website with a blog ( I think the heard they should blog from a friend at a BBQ on the weekend who is an EXPERT ....... plumber ) but NEVER post on the blog after I complete the site

HONEST, a recent client...... lets call them "dubbocarpetcleaning" asked me to add a blog into the site and a facebook link of course !!!!!!!!

I said WTF, what do you have to blog about that people would follow? let alone facebook friends....... " hey john I'm following dubbo carpet cleaning , like it as well " , " ohh look dubbocarpetcleaning just cleaned peters carpets, lets get on over there and have a look with our dusty railway mining boots cause he's got that plush white carpet "

just for the record, only catholics can tell catholic jokes, just like jews, irish, polish mexican, american, canadian, buddist, muslim, star trekkies, etc etc SO THUS , half my relatives live in Dubbo so I am allowed to tell Dubbo jokes........... OK

thus the consistent theme ( for newbies wondering )

tim

 

[Rhythm]

So you're not a Dentist in Dubbo?

 

[James]

We try to keep it to 1 website per client, We have some clients who want to have 2 or 3 websites but before that is possible we ensure that they have the correct capacity to be able to generate weekly content and make the websites work..

Personally I am not a fan of 5 pages websites any more, I would rather see clients build good websites which will be long lasting.

 

[m8e]

I have 1 domain with 20+ microsites, another 1 domain with 10 landing pages

Hi Tim,

I'm curious to know what the site structure is here,

Are these all on separate subdomains
or separate directories,
or just individual pages?

I've heard (about 6 years ago on a podcast)
that separate subdomains gives each site totally separate SEO ranking (for better or worse)

i.e. they hardly affect each other (but I'm not sure if this is still true, given Google update their ranking algorithm many times a year)

Cheers,

MM

 

[findtim]

Hi Tim,

I'm curious to know what the site structure is here,

Are these all on separate subdomains
or separate directories,
or just individual pages?

I've heard (about 6 years ago on a podcast)
that separate subdomains gives each site totally separate SEO ranking (for better or worse)

i.e. they hardly affect each other (but I'm not sure if this is still true, given Google update their ranking algorithm many times a year)

Cheers,

MM

the site structure is pre panda and penguin so it was an old tactic.

1 main site with @ 20+ pages ( product descriptions, safety info, but no ecom ) + blog, then 20 landing pages for their franchises and no outbound links from anywhere. Then 20 domain EMD town + service names with five pages on each with content specific to the franchiser, internal links but the only link out was to the main site.

its actually still doing well with @ 90% on the first page for local search.

we then created local google places for each as well as hotfrog, truelocal, startlocal listings.

then we did some bad link building for the main site and its now got hit and dropped to page 6 so trying to fix that now but as i said the local sites are holding solid

the focus is lead generation and they are going quite steady, truly paid for itself in the first year

tim