Many business owners that have been on the web for awhile have more than one website. A common purpose for this is to flood the Internet with your websites so searchers are more likely to find one of your sites than your competitions. This is a well-known and commonly used strategy but there are a few key points to remember when using it.

Tip #1 – Unique Content
It is extremely important to insure that the content on each of your websites is unique and not duplicated. This can be tricky when it comes to certain pages like “About Us” or a company history page. If you duplicate some of this content, having multiple sites can work against you more than actually help you.

Tip #2 – Target different audiences
To avoid having duplicate content issues, you can always use each site to target a different market. For example, if you were a Realtor with multiple sites, you could use each one to target a different city or county. This can be extremely useful since it may be easier to rank well for individual city real estate searches.

Tip #3 – Great Domain Names
You will always want to make sure you own your company’s name as your primary website. If you are going to buy multiple sites, your secondary sites can include keyword rich domains. Search engines give some weight to those sites who have keywords in their domain name.

Tip #4 – Lead Generators
Your primary site should obviously be your place of business where people can buy from your or learn more about your services. The great part about having an alternative site is you can have fun with it. Instead of focusing on bringing in customers, you can be creative and include linkbait type content that people will enjoy looking at. There can always be a little pitch about your business and a link to your main website to make the most of it.

Tip #5 – Enter the Blogosphere
More and more professionals are including blogs as part of their business. Many companies integrate this into their website but if you feel that a blog doesn’t fit your site or you don’t want to pay a web developer to add one, you can always use an additional domain to run your blog. Blogs have the potential to do very well in search engines because of their frequently changing content and you may find that a blog can be an incredible business generator.

For the average small business owner, dedicating the limited amount of time and resources you have into one good website is typically a better strategy than releasing multiple sites and sacrificing quality for quantity. However, if you already have multiple sites out there on the web, taking advantage of your small network of sites can push you to the top of the search engine results and knock your competitors down the list. Make the most of your websites and make sure that they are helping each other instead of hurting.

Bryan Phelps
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