Thanks for the question. Yeah, your client can will be totally safe with putting an “about” paragraph at the end of all posts. Very similar to how most articles and PR is done.

One of the biggest things that you can get your client to do is to set up a keyword strategy around their blog posts. I too have a client that is a very active blogger and what we do is sit down every month or two and go over some topics that they can write on and then I give them the keywords they would want to include in the post. This should help your client as well and give you the ability to add those tags to the post.

Hope that helps!

I’m fairly certain that if you are trying to optimize for a phrase and you tag it but don’t have it in your content that’s a no-no. But that’s why I wanted to find out about this being considered duplicate content. Thanks in advance for your input.

Thanks for the question. I would build out BOC.com to include your general contracting content over establishing a new site. Simple reason is you have built authority from a search engine perspective to BOC so why not take advantage of that? Your going to be 6-12 months out if you go the new domain route.

If I was providing SEO services for you and BOC, I WOULD NOT go the new domain route it just not make good SEO sense. Were you planning on concentrating on the local GEO areas as well for the general contracting services? I would as I see too many small to medium businesses try to go after the “head” terms and become disappointed with their SEO efforts because of this. Should they also be fortunate enough to receive some placement for those terms they are very disappointed with the business they receive from it.

A couple other things I would suggest:

1) Get your webmaster or hosting company to do a 301 redirect on your http://boc.com website to your http://www.boc.com site. Your site has a canonical issue which means simply that the search engines see the www. and non-www sites as two sites. This bleeds your authority and creates a duplicate content issue. If you need any additional information please let me know.

2) Did you plan on building out pages for the zip codes you display on the home page? I would build them out or get rid of that content as it is “spammy”. I like the idea if you build out quality pages.

3) I would change out your home link to go directly to the root and not /index.htm. Your bleeding out some of the authority there as well. 301 redirect will cure that as well.

4) I like to see you get more unique content on the site. I see your using Ara Content which is quality content, but it is not helping you from a SEO perspective. Go with a blog and get some unique quality content on your site. Let me know if you need any help.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate in asking. Also, should you feel I have answered your questions A link would be greatly appreciated.

Frank

I have one question that I am still finding trouble getting a direct answer. I have an electrical contracting company and am happy with our seo progress. Now, I’d like to delve into general contracting (which we are also licensed for) but I don’t want to discount my previous and ongoing seo efforts for my electrical site, which is the main bread/butter. So for example my site is branovercontractors.com (its all electrical) Is it ok if I buy lets say branoverconstruction.com with obviously slightly different content (focus on general contractor stuff), but same have the same phone number and branover in it? I’ve been trying so hard to get a quality answer. Your opinion is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

i tried adding internet pages but either havent put forth enough effort or people just arent finding it. people come to us for electrical services. when they need an electrician.

so i guess, what im saying is, put yourself in a potential customers role. this new domain site will have more than just slightly different content i believe. aside from it having our brand name on it, branover, and it being in the general construction field it really is quite different. i mean my goal and focus of the new site will be focusing on things a customer would need out of a general contractor, i.e. keywords/content like “room additions”, “kitchen remodels”, “plumbing” etc…obviously electrical will be in there but it wont be the main and only focus as is with our electrical site. the focus will be on new construction, remodels, painting, additions, custom homes. i feel like im not sure creating content and pages like this on my existing electrical site will be good enough. with that said, what are you thought now on creating a whole new domain site, with the only content similar is our brand name, phone number, and electrical being only one of the many services i plan on offering? let me know your thought please

Thanks for the question. If this was my client I would advise the client to move the new domain to another server that would have the IP address on another Class C. Today, you can get a new domain on its own IP address for few hundred bucks for the year and to me that is a very good investment.

I do not think that having a few unique domains on the same IP address will hurt you from a SEO perspective if you do not cross link. Now if it you have this domain on another IP address outside the same Class C, then you could link back a few times and not get hurt and it will help the new site’s link profile.

Yes, the new domain that you have created could be filtered out of the SERPS if you are just doing a copy/paste of the content with changing out the local terms. What I would do is find a way to make the duplicate content on the new site unique in the search engines “eyes”. You can spin the copy or add new unique content to the existing copy so it will not be a direct one to one copy.

I have been successful in doing thousands of geo targeted pages with a template that consists of the first paragraph being generic copy that you replaced local term for local term. The next 1 or 2 paragraphs are unique content that talk about the specific geo area. In your example, I would get census data and incorporate this into your geo targeted pages. I would wrap up the page with another generic paragraph.

Have you thought about a sub domain approach? Sub domains still get a boost in authority and as long as your content is unique and specific to the sub domain you will be fine. It should give you the ability to only create a few pages on the geo area without risking any duplicate content issues. Hope this helps!

Frank

My client had me build his wordpress site for his business on a domain hosted by HostMonster. They allow unlimited domains on the same account.

This client wants me to duplicate his primary domain onto sub/add-on domains on the same account (different domains with the same IP address) and just change the physical location on the pages of the additional domain sites for his businesses in other cities.

So I’m wondering if even though the duplicate content is under different domain name but falling under the same IP address, will they incur a duplicate penalty or be filtered out for geo targeted searches?

IE – search term: body shop Nashville TN
OR – Search term: body shop Memphis TN

The only differences between the 2 is domain name ie.

NashvilleBodyShop.com . . . and
MemphisBodyshop.com

And the physical street addresses and phone numbers.

It seems to me the geo tagging aspect on local searches should eliminate duplicate filtering.

I would REALLY be interested on your opinion regarding this situation.

Great blog you have here – thanks for all your hard work,

Mike

Thanks for commenting