To consolidate, or not to consildate content

Too many websites for one company?

[jkerschb76]

One of our clients operates in the healthcare recruitment industry, and their marketing focus is nearly 100% online. They are switching job board software providers (their old solution was too inflexible) and are planning to redesign their site for better usability. During our discussions, they've asked me whether they should keep their existing websites separate as they are now (each focuses on a niche within the healthcare industry) or whether they should consolidate them under a single domain and simply have "channels" or "portals" within the consolidated site that are dedicated to each niche. Anyone have strong opinions or insights either way? They are currently doing lots of PPC but no SEO. Below are their websites so you can take a peek.

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[edited by: trillianjedi at 9:50 am (utc) on May 30, 2006]
[edit reason] Please see TOS #13. Thanks! [/edit]

[wanderingmind]

Umm.. URL drops are not allowed.

[jkerschb76]

Sorry about that.

[wanderingmind]

Normally, I would consider every website as a property which loses some of its SEO value when merged into one.

On the other hand, larger sites are usually better if there are no other problems.

If having a single brand is critical, you hae no option, right?

For example, you can have a CNN and a BBC and grow both to their max. Or you can merge both and have one.

I normally always prefer the second option, and to have two quality sites instead of one.

[jlr1001]

Are the purposes for having multiple sites so distinct that continuing this makes sense?

For example... A main hospital administration website with a secondary site geared for patient education through articles and video streams.

In that example both sites could be branded differently to make the best use of their purposes.

Unless your client's target niches are so disparate that it wouldn't make sense to "bunch all the sites up" I'd opt for your portal idea.

-jlr1001

[Harry]

It really is a case by case scenario. As a rule of thumb to start out with one site to lower your workload which is usually big when you start. Later, if the site is strong and there are specific sections that could be launched into their own site, you could split.