The Pros and Cons of Having Multiple Business Websites (+Best Practices)

Every business is different.

To decide whether to have multiple websites or not depends on your specific business needs. For your SEO, it could be a good or bad tactic depending on some factors.

For instance, having multiple websites is usually a viable option for big companies with large scale operations – with a diverse range of products/services and audiences.

But there is much more why it could be best for your business. It is linked to best practices, such as targeting different locales and customer groups.

Clearly, having multiple websites has both positives and negatives. Explore them here – plus the best practices – so you can narrow down your option.

Positives of Having Multiple Websites

1. Targets a diverse audience 

Irrespective of the type of business, companies often struggle to communicate with a diverse audience with a single website.

Different sets of customers have different expectations for your products/services. This is where having multiple websites comes in handy.

It helps addresses the need for diverse messaging. So, you can cater to the diverse interests and frustrations of your different target groups.

2. Targets multiple locales 

Does your business have multiple local presences? You can have different websites with geo-specific domains for each of them to build a stronger connection with your local customers.

Doing so makes your website more user-friendly for local users – customising your content and design. It shows that you’re committed to the local market earning their trust and loyalty.

For instance, if you're targeting Australia and Singapore, you can boost your local presence with www.yourbusiness.au and www.yourbusiness.sg domain names.

3. Showcases your specialisation

Having separate websites for different business niches allows you to promote your specialisation more effectively.

You can have focused keywords if you’re promoting more than one brand or business niche. Moreover, you can avoid being penalised by search engines for using too many keywords in a single website – which is popularly called keyword stuffing.

Apart from supporting product/service niches, this also helps you develop specific and value-driven content, making your website successful in the long run.

Negatives of Having Multiple Websites

1. Affects your SEO

Having multiple websites may affect your SEO ranking negatively.

Because you would end up splitting your link authority among your multiple websites. Which leads to garnering bad links from phishing sites.

Furthermore, keeping multiple websites also runs you the risk of being penalised for double or identical content.

2. Decreases branding effects 

Using multiple sites means you should have separate online branding too. Which can reduce the market influence of your business, at large.

Considering that it may confuse your customers when they look up you online using your business name.

3. High Expense

The more websites or domains you have, the more budget and time it requires – from building to maintenance and fixes.

And when you decide to merge all your websites later, be ready to deal with migration costs if you want to do it efficiently.

Best Practices in Managing Multiple Websites

Managing multiple websites requires a great deal of work in terms of devising new market penetration strategy, reaching out to a global audience and scaling your business.

The pros and cons we have discussed earlier may already give you an idea of which direction you should go in. But it also pays off to know the following best practices in using multiple websites for your business:

Link your websites together

Linking your sites together gives you an excellent opportunity to share link authority and build on your search engine ranking.

You can link your websites through your blog and other website content. But some inner linked their websites through the logos of their different brands.

Merge sites when it makes sense

If your marketing the same products and services on your multiple websites and none of them are ranking well, it could be best to merge your websites to improve link authority and your SEO.

The need here is to thoroughly evaluate the potential growth of all the keyword rankings versus the revenue loss caused by multiple websites.

Never replicate your websites

Never commit the mistake of just copying all your content as it is on your multiple websites. It won’t do your SEO any good as well as your online reputation.

Parting thoughts

Having multiple sites for your business makes more sense if you are using it to create unique experiences for your diverse users. Also, to claim better rankings on major search engines, such as Google.

But remember to also weigh in the negatives, such as the splitting your link authority which makes it difficult to rank in competitive spaces.

The best strategy before deciding to combine or keep websites separate is to do a comparative analysis of the benefits of both on SEO and your business.