Multiple domain names?

Hello,

just getting into all this SEO stuff. Have started a one page website advertising my computer repair/sales business.

I am currently marketing it with pay per click ads on google/yahoo/msn. It's been a week and I've already got my first sale and 2 enquires.

However I'd like to optimise my site in organic search listings.

I have taken the most impresions in my keyword ads and have purchased the domain names. Is this a good move?

for example I have mywebsite.co.uk

I've also purchased mycitycomputerrepairs.co.uk mycitycompterservices.co.uk and so on.

If I add these new domian to google's add url will I have any more chance of being top when someing type in the search "mycity computer repair" ?

Also can I use the same page for these different domians or will google black list me for adding all the domains that point to the same hosting url?

As you can see my theory is to just try and target the local market. I have a full time job so can't get into sales too much over the web, nor would I want to.

There's a lot of controversy on whether KIDS help your ranking. IMO having Keywords in Domains helps but only a little. If your target keywords are noncompetitive, than you'll be happy with the results. For a small niche like computer repair in your city, you've made a good decision. But it's just the beginning.

Having multiple domain names registered will not help you to get better rankings in the organic search listings... unless you host those domains all over the place, build an individual optimised site on each one and seek external links to each one of them... then link all of them to the "best performer in the bunch" or the main one!

If your intention is to build only one page, you cannot put it on multiple domains without incurring penalties for duplicate content.
If your intention is to build a load of one-page sites for each keyword/product group etc you will find them hard to promote...
But you can build one website to market your product range and create a subfolder or page for each category/keyword group etc; then - because much of the key to success in organic listings comes from promotion (thus time and expense, which are always limited) - it will almost certainly perform better than multiple domains.

imho the only advantage to owning multiple domains is if they are "type-in" names and are all forwarded to your website domain.

Well, having your best keywords in your URL does influence your rankings (i mean, what site is more about Cool Widgets than CoolWidgets.com), but you also have to look at your other promotion strategies. You pretty much have to pick one url and run with it, so if you're doing adwords and any other promotions, especially offline, having a good URL for people is key. Doesn't mean one is not good for the other, it's just a consideration.

(It's not a bad idea to register other top level domains, like .com, .net etc to keep squatters from getting it though, since they're so cheap now)

Regionsl top level domains are good since you're service is locally-based. If you're trying to brand for the long run mysite.co.uk is better than mycitycomputerrepairs.co.uk, in my opinion.

Those are my overall marketing thoughts, hope it helps! Once you're getting hits, product wins in the long run, and brand is important.

Having multiple domains won't help one site get to the top in serps, however it can have other benefits.

1 - You can do better split testing in adwords as have some ads go to one site and others to another site.

2 - It does give you to (or more) bites of the cherry, as you can promote them seperately as long as you are careful about dupe content and you have different page names and urls.

3 - You can test new sections and functions on one site (a minor site) before transferring them to the main site.

We have a number of sites (our main one is in the link sig) and they are all different. It gives us great opportunities to test new functionality one one site and then add it to other sites if it works.

You mention in the op you have a one page site. I would look at increasing the content of your site to more than one page.

Okay, I am confusing myself now and in need of some SEO 101 help. Right now we have several registered domains which point to web hosting accounts with sub-folders/directories for the different domain names. In each of those folders our prior IT guy placed an index.html page that has 301 redirect coding (and nothing in the .htaccess file), and he points the page to our main web sites home page. Since all of these domains point to the same index.html page on the same web site, will this be seen as duplicate content? If so, what is the right way to handle all these domains? Any help appreciated.

Having keywords in the domain i believe is helpful to yahoo and msn (slightly) but not to Google, i dont think having re-directed domains heading towards your site will do any good. Correct me if i'm wrong though!

Right, and you can get your keywords into your url by adding a KW-Named folder to your main site.
But they wouldn't rank #1 for that term with a one-page site.
Exactly.

No, you're quite right...
Except it seems that KW's in domain name ("KIDS") does have an influence on Google nowadays... But it's still about the site itself, KIDS are nothing without content and the right content negates the benefit of KIDS altogether.
No problem with duplicate content and no help at all for your main domain.
All you really get from them is the ongoing bill for domain registration!

Domain networks used to work... You could register a bunch of names, put a few links to them from a seperate site and use them as "doorway domains" for your main site. Nowadays, those sites will pass on very little benefit without substantial targetted backlinks (getting those links to your main domain instead, would be even better) and without content (again much better on your main domain).

Buying domains to stop competitors from registering them is ok if you have a brand name and wish to protect it (in which case trademarking would be far better) but otherwise is pointless.

I want to test my thinking on multiple domains when used in a specific situation. Here are the details:

• There is one main company with 3 key, highly related subsidiary companies.
• There will be one website that will encompass the entire business including the 3 subsidiiaries.
• Each subsidiary will have their area within the "company's" website where their services are promoted.
• Each of the subsidiaries is a recognized brand and they want to preserve and continue to support that brand.
• There are significant competitors for each of the subsidiaries. However, most do not show signs of highly effective SEO efforts.
• The companies are not totally separated on the website as all 4 companies are integrated in the "Contact Us" and "About" sections of the site.

So my thinking is we employ 4 domain names. The main domain name that goes to the home page of the site. That will be the current domain name which is the company name.

Each of the subsidiaries would have their own domain name which would use a 301 redirect to go directly to the section of the website where that subsidiary is promoting its services.

The domain names chosen (and available) for the subsidiaries either include the subsidiary's name or the keyword phrase for that subsidiary's main landing page. In one case, the subsidiary name has a very low average monthly search volume when compared against the keyword phrase.

So there it is. Punch holes in it. What's good about my approach? What is bad? Is there SEO value, traffic value or branding value in using the multiple domain names in the manner I've described? What else should I do? What should change?

Thanks for your feedback.

Terry

Freedom Fighter...

Why not make mini-sites for each subsidiary instead of redirecting them? Each having unique content. For branding, it may create confusion between the subsidiary vs. the main (company) site.

Thanks for your feedback MrCat. I've incorporated your idea into our discussions. One question though to make sure I understand what you were saying -- Did you mean that confusion might result if the mini-site idea is employed? Or that the confusion would result if we followed my deep linking with Redirects approach? Could you elaborate please?

Thanks again.