Domain for each town or 1 domain with 5-6 town landing pages?

[jj1]

I have a potential customer who wants to set up 5-6 websites with a domain:
keyword-towna.co.uk
keyword-townb.co.uk
keyword-townc.co.uk
etc

All domains would then have backpages for the different services offered.

I would normally do:
keyword-towna.co.uk with different landing pages for each of the towns - keyword-towna.co.uk/keyword/townb.htm,
keyword-towna.co.uk/keyword/townc.htm
etc

I know that keywords in the domain help with the serps but is the multiple domains really the best option? Does he run into problems with the search engines seeing the extra domains as duplicates (even if he varies the text a bit)?

If I do go down the multiple domain route, would it create problems if I linked all the websites together?

Would appreciate advice from anyone with experience - am seeing the client Monday night.


MODS - hope I've put this into the right section; wasn't sure between this section and SEO.

 

[boxfish]

For me I would build a single site.

The benefit to the customer is they only have a single site to promote, only have a single site to update, add photos and testimonials to, and only one site to get links back to from satisfied customers etc.

I'd also keep away from hyphenated domains, as any offline advertising, such as van signwriting and newspaper adverts is likely to leak traffic to other local competitors.

Unless you have townservice.co.uk without any hyphens etc I would also look at using a brandable domain. If you do a search for 'handyman manchester' just look at how many of the domains are made up of those two keywords, all of them bar a result from freeindex. I would try and get a name that stands out, rather than gets mixed in with the mishmash of hyphens, no hyphens and mix of extensions.

 

[willbon]

Out of interest would it be better to do :

1) what looks like a single site but then instead of different pages it goes to different keyworded sites (same graphics for user continuity)

2) Sub domains from a single site using the keywords

or

3) Single site only.. as suggested?

(assuming exactly the same content but spread in different ways)

 

[jj1]

Many thanks for reply boxfish - especially tips re hyphens.

The customer concerned actually has a pr2 site (smkeywords.com) with links from dmoz.org and a few others but, due to very poor coding and content, it is doing badly in the serps. (As I'm being critical of another designer's work, I'm not giving actual domain).

He also has a pr3 site (townkeywords.com) which actually only has 1 other link apart from yell.com so I've no idea why it is a pr3 (created in 2009) and is doing OK although not wonderfully in the serps - again it has poor coding and content.

At the moment, I am thinking of keeping the smkeyword.com site as it has more useful backlinks (in spite of being a pr2 not a pr3) and redoing the seo and then adding landing pages for each town.

Does that seem the best approach to people?

 

[julian]

I can't believe some fool is going to pay you money for your services, in which your needing to ask hotchpotch advice for on here.. make hay while the sun shines I suppose..

 

[jj1]

I can't believe some fool is going to pay you money for your services, in which your needing to ask hotchpotch advice for on here.. make hay while the sun shines I suppose..

I have a small web design company - not a SEO company; whilst I am used to writing and coding single sites so that they do well for local customers, I am not a domain expert and have not had experience of interlinking multiple domains and so thought I'd ask people in a domain forum if they had had experience of this. I am aware that, at the end of the day, I need to make up my own mind as to the best way forward but getting information from people with different backgrounds and different levels of experience can sometimes be helpful - in fact, I thought sharing info and learning from others was one of the key functions of a forum.

I had not expected such a needlessly aggressive and rude reply.

 

[julian]

Sorry it was a bit harsh.

I misunderstood you and thought you were a plumber and wanted advice on how to fit a bath plug!

I have a small web design company - not a SEO company; whilst I am used to writing and coding single sites so that they do well for local customers, I am not a domain expert and have not had experience of interlinking multiple domains and so thought I'd ask people in a domain forum if they had had experience of this. I am aware that, at the end of the day, I need to make up my own mind as to the best way forward but getting information from people with different backgrounds and different levels of experience can sometimes be helpful - in fact, I thought sharing info and learning from others was one of the key functions of a forum.

I had not expected such a needlessly aggressive and rude reply.