Hi All,
I am setting up a single limited company and then trading as say A, B & C. They all offer services in there own right which are all different to each other.
My question is should I set up a website with each as a sub domain i.e company.co.uk/a, /b &/c or would it be better to give each a domain of there own i.e. companya.co.uk , companyb.co.uk
Hosting is not an issue and would be happy doing it either way. However your advise would be gratefully received.
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I would say it is best to set up a different website for each product. A subdomain may give the impression it is an affiliate site, which may do nothing for your credibility. Domain name are relatively inexpensive so go for seperate domain names. There is an old saying 'don't spoil the ship for a hapenworth of tar' or words to that effect.

Regards

Bdav
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Thanks Bdav,
That's what I was thinking but wanted to get some advise first.
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I would suggest creating your websites with their own domains. They can even have their own trading styles as long as you display your company details correctly. We use the same style on some websites but others stand alone.

For info on - Displaying your company details (http://www.sfsgo.com/registered-office-details-new-law.asp)

Mike
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If you can spare the time, definitely create separate websites for each area of the business. It will help with SEO, and ensure that customers are aware that you take their area of interest seriously.

Stylewise, I'd recommend keeping the designs similar but altering details. For example, use green shades for one service and blue shades on the same design for another.

To tie them together, you could include a link back to a basic 'umbrella' site with a few details on the company as a whole.
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I don't agree.

You are just giving yourself three websites to promote in the search engines. Any link you get to one website will count for nothing with the other two. I would put them on the same URL (like www.apple.com and Amazon etc.. do for individual country sites) so that all the links to your website raise the prominence of all three. Our three teams within NuBlue all have their own website but on the same domain:

Trading Sites

www.nublue.co.uk
www.nublue.co.uk/web_hosting/
www.nublue.co.uk/website_marketing/
www.nublue.co.uk/web_design_agency/

Company Site

www.nufuture.co.uk (give the stylesheet switcher a go! :))

We moved to this from a seperate site strategy and this has worked a lot better (the site is bigger, has more links, controlled from one CMS etc..) just my opinion. :)
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Hi NuBlue,

The original idea came from the bbc website, where all the channels etc have a sub domain similar yours. However because they are different areas i.e. one say computers another say media etc I did think it would be better to have them separated to distinguish the different areas of expertise.
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We moved to this from a seperate site strategy and this has worked a lot better (the site is bigger, has more links, controlled from one CMS etc..) just my opinion. :)

I really like your approach, and take your point about one site having more punching power in the search engines.

Kane - I guess it really depends on what's being sold, and whether a client would expect to find all the products on one site.
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I understand your thought process behind this. But I think you can distinguish between the different areas of expertise with the websites design so that each area has a different feel.

I think you would find it a very difficult task to get three individual websites to a decent level in the search engines for their respective searches! That is a hell of a lot of link building :)

There is no real right/wrong answer to this problem, but in my opinion one domain would be more beneficial to your Search Engine placement, which is presumably where you intend to get most of your traffic from.

If you do decide to set up 3 domains, let me know and I'll be happy to sell you 3 hosting accounts :p
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So you would recomend starting with home page for the limited company then linking to company a,b & c. Then making each sub domain slightly different to reflect the areas of expertise.
This would also have the added function of giving a better appearance with regards linking them the the main limited company?
Or have I missed something?
Thanks
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So you would recomend starting with home page for the limited company then linking to company a,b & c. Then making each sub domain slightly different to reflect the areas of expertise.
This would also have the added function of giving a better appearance with regards linking them the the main limited company?
Or have I missed something?
Thanks

Assuming your products fit into the same category, I'd recommend doing as NuBlue says (have a look at his website for a very good example).

If, however, your products are very different, then a single website could make you seem less 'specialist' and the separate websites option may work better for you.
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Hi Mat_D,

We have a computer services company, a media company, and a photo/video restoration company. They all in some ways compliment each other but also stand on there own. NuBlue's website is great however they are all to do with website's, be it hosting or designing. However the teams I am working with are not so close-nit. They do some crossover work but we are trying to keep them separated to a larger degree. However I do like the idea of the single site for the three.
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So you would recomend starting with home page for the limited company then linking to company a,b & c. Then making each sub domain slightly different to reflect the areas of expertise.
This would also have the added function of giving a better appearance with regards linking them the the main limited company?
Or have I missed something?
Thanks

Yeah, start with one portal page (linking to A,B & C). Then make three sites (A,B,C) and upload these sites to sub domains or www.yourdomain.com/site-a.

Once they are all finsihed link them into the portal page. Any link building you do can then point to the portal page which will show your visitors the full spectrum of what you offer (which should in theory help you cross sell your products too).

Like Matt said though, if you products are vastly different (site a= chalk and site b = cheese) then you may want to seperate them but it depedns on what you are going to sell.
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Hi Mat_D,

We have a computer services company, a media company, and a photo/video restoration company. They all in some ways compliment each other but also stand on there own. NuBlue's website is great however they are all to do with website's, be it hosting or designing. However the teams I am working with are not so close-nit. They do some crossover work but we are trying to keep them separated to a larger degree. However I do like the idea of the single site for the three.

Given that the three businesses are quite different (at least from a customer's viewpoint), in an ideal world I would say split them into separate sites.

Having said that, NuBlue pointed out that there is a lot more work involved in promoting three websites (four if you plan to create an 'umbrella' site) than just one.

Depending on the size of your operation, and the amount of time/money you have to put into this, the benefits of one website may well outweigh the time & money related cons of three. Added to which, you can always expand one website into three if you feel it would help you in the future.
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