Opening an office in a new town. . . new site, or same site

[HoosierBuff]

Hi all,

I feel I know the answer to this, but, just wanted to have someone double check my thoughts.

I have a client that has a pretty good reputation in Colorado Springs. They are now opening up an office in Denver ( a much bigger city), about 70 miles away. They are thinking that they want a new site, and I feel they should just add a location page to the new site (and change the copy around).

On the one hand the current site is fairly strong locally (in the less competitive colorado springs market). On the other hand, it would be great to be able to dedicate the denver site strictly to Denver, and focus on that Geo area with keywords etc.

My gut is: Build the one site, and use location pages to rank in Denver, but, also make the text across the site more "serving colorado springs and denver" oriented.

 

[James Watt]

The main advantage of having one site, is you get to benefit from the site authority across both, and any organic authority you build going forward for one will benefit the other as well. My vote's with one site, as you described.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Hi Hoosier

There's another great thread you might like to read that doesn't give a clear yes/no answer, but is a hearty/robust discussion on websites and locations. There are some real gems in it.

https://www.localsearchforum.com/organic-seo/42102-do-exact-match-domains-still-work.html

Unfortunately there isn't always a clear yes/no answer to these things. In large part, solutions depend on a customer's budget.

As general advice, I do agree wholeheartedly with James.

 

[chadkimball]

I vote for one site. Keep all the authority in one place. That way you're not spreading out your efforts between two sites.

 

[HoosierBuff]

Thanks all for the great responses. . . some good points brought up. I'm going to stick with the one site!