As a company that works on web popularity and marketing programs for businesses in Denver a lot, part of that is seeing what tactics other SEO companies use to get rankings for their clients.
SEO in Denver is a relatively small field, so if you are around long enough you have the opportunity to see the process and work of many of the leading companies.
One tactic that is used often by several is the production of additional web sites in addition to the primary web site of a client. As an example, of you business is a handyman service, an seo might suggest the normal process of working with your main site, and then add 4 additional sites with the words handyman _____
and add a city name to the city term.
Lot’s of good SEO thought process here, and some might call it black hat or at least gray. AS a comparison other SEO’s use blogs they clearly produced and optimized that frankly have little or no value besides the SEO value.
We think the multiple web site tactic is white hat. Why wouldn’t you want your business as visible as possible? If the Internet was a Interstate highway, your web site is a billboard. Of course you would want as many billboards as you could put up.
BUT, Using the same content on different sites is a no no. This is where marketing and SEO have to work together. In a Marketing sense, if you are being seen by a different audience than your main site duplicate content wouldn’t matter. (It’s like running an advertisement in two different magazines). Google however hates duplicate content and has no ability to discern logically if the content is intended and delivered to different audiences.
Just another example of how small business owners can get into ranking trouble, even when their intent is honest.
See more about our search engine optimization