General contractor with a separate electrical website: one Google Business Profile or two?

[WebProfitLab]

We're one company in Washington State doing general contracting and electrical work. The electrical side has its own website and domain, separate from the main contracting site. We're about to verify our Google Business Profile, and I'd like to get the structure right first.
What I'm unsure about:

• Is a second profile for the electrical side ever allowed when it's the same company, or would Google treat it as a duplicate?
• If it has to be one profile, would you link it to the main site and send electrical visitors to the other domain from there, or link it to whichever site brings in more of the calls?
• Does it matter that electrical work needs its own state license here?

Not trying to game anything. I just don't want to set it up in a way that gets the profile suspended later.

 

[Stefan Somborac]

The GBP part of the question is easy: one business, one GBP.

Of course, one business can have multiple locations, in which case each location could have its own profile. (e.g. consider multiple Starbucks locations) A service business can do something similar if you have multiple teams, each with its own phone number, dispatched from different locations.

But if you've got one team dispatched from one base of operations, that's one profile.

This is according Google's Guidelines. There's no a lot of room for interpretation.

As for the website, opinions may vary.

The website content tells Google about what your business does. It helps boost relevance for all your services. IMO, by having your electrical content on a different website, you're missing the opportunity to associate the GBP with all your electrical services. You're also splitting your backlinks over two domains. I'd go with one website for all services.

 

[WebProfitLab]

Thanks, Stefan, that settles the profile side: one team from one base, so one profile.
On the website, if we fold the electrical site into the main one, would you 301 each electrical page to its matching service page on the main site, or keep the old domain live for a while and point it at one electrical hub page? We would show the electrical license number on those pages either way, since that work needs it here.

 

[Tony Wang]

On the other hand, you may want to consider splitting into two separate businesses if there is enough electrical work, and assuming you have an electrician and he is different from your general contractor.

Depending on how competitive your area is, one GBP will probably not rank well for both categories.

 

[aldo_quantic]

On your follow-up about folding the electrical site into the main site: use page-to-page 301s where there is a genuine replacement. A panel-upgrade page should land on the new panel-upgrade page, not on a generic electrical hub just because it is on the right domain. Create the replacement pages first and carry across useful service details, photos and licensing information.

For an old page with no equivalent, decide whether its useful content belongs on the new hub before redirecting it there. Avoid sending unrelated or retired content to one destination indiscriminately. Update internal links and canonicals to the final URLs, and test that the old URLs redirect in one hop to working, indexable pages.

Keeping the old domain does not require keeping a second copy of the website live: retain its registration, HTTPS and hosting needed to serve the redirects. Also preserve any email routing before switching DNS. If that domain handles electrical enquiries today, losing its mail during an otherwise clean SEO migration could be the more immediate business problem.

 

[WebProfitLab]

Thanks, Tony, that is a fair point about one profile covering two categories.
If it stays one profile for now, would you make general contractor or electrician the primary category? And does the secondary category still help much with electrical searches, or does it mostly come down to the primary?

 

[Tony Wang]

Primary category pulls the most weight, for sure. So use whichever is your main business. Secondary categories can help, but again, it depends on how competitive your area is.

You can always experiment by changing the primary, that's the only way to know for sure. But I'm a little hesitant about that these days, Google seems to like suspending profiles :-(

Also, you'll need to make it very clear on your home page that you do both services so Google can associate the profile with both.