website advice needed

[bailey!!]

We currently run a business which has a website that has taken a long to establish itself organically. We also currently pay for google ads which brings in some additional work.

We are looking at relocating to a different area we are trying to find out if keeping our existing website and business name is the best way to do this, given how long it takes for google to recognize organic search info.

The main thing that would change would be the location we would still be providing the same service just to a different target audience location.

- Are we best to amend the existing seo to the new target postcodes /locations and keep the existing or start from scratch? my concern here is that we have good reviews and i know how long it took for work to come in from the current site and we need to have it being productive from day one.

- Also when it comes to names of businesses would having the nearest town or first part of postcode in the name help with google picking it up organically when people search in that area?

Any advice that can be offered would be great our current website provider is not being the most helpful so i need some advice please.

We are not an ecommerce website we advertise a service that the local community would then contact us to book via our website enquiries form, email or telephone.

Many Thanks

 

[fisicx]

Without details of the website it’s not possible to answer this question.

But it’s not a good idea to change anything as fundamental as a location.

 

[bailey!!]

Without details of the website it’s not possible to answer this question.

But it’s not a good idea to change anything as fundamental as a location.

Thanks so on that basis that changing location isnt a good idea, we are better starting a new website for the new area? I think we are swaying towards a name change anyway, so could potentially use content from old website and tweak it for the new business.

 

[AllUpHere]

What business are you in? Is it not something for which you could just concentrate on GMB?

 

[bailey!!]

What business are you in? Is it not something for which you could just concentrate on GMB?

Not sure what GMB means? in the motor industry

 

[fisicx]

GMB: Google My Business. The map listings that display when you do a local search.

 

[bailey!!]

Oh I see, yes we use google my business posts and page for our current business and will implement this in our new one. Surely having a website too is more advantageous to reaching more of the target market? what other methods would you suggest alongside GMB if we are looking at website alternatives?

 

[fisicx]

Need to know more about the business to offer useful advice.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

GMB = Google My Busines, it's the new name for the maps listings that appear near the top of the page when you search.

What you need to do is create a new listing on GMB, create a page on your existing website that is tailored to the new location (Name address telephone), add this page as the URL for your new GMB.

Once the GMB is live and after a short while, you can merge the listings which will then combine all the reviews etc.

You have to be very careful how you handle this as it can blow up in your face.

Feel free to ask for clarification on this as it's something I handle regularly and know well. It will also help the community

 

[bailey!!]

Thanks for all your advise. We have considered it further and actually think we may have to keep the name of the business we are buying as its known locally and may cost us more in the long run to change it.
Therefore it would not be a simple to relocate our current website as the business names and url would be different, which is a shame as we have taken a long time to establish organic google listings on page 1.
Taking this into account i presume that the only option is to start a new website from scratch as i presume it would be overly complicated to change the name of the URL along with the business name and location just to keep the existing websites content?
In which case if a new website has to be set up whats the best approach to getting that all important 1st page on google other than paying to google ads? we would have to set up a new GMB also as our old one is linked to our existing businesses email address and business name.

So many things to consider just want to make sure we make the right decision and have a website that google likes and recognises from the beginning. Cant afford to set one up and only appear on back pages of google searches defeats the purpose.

Anyone with any marketing recommendations to reach people much appreciated also.

TIA

 

[Alan]

Identify any valuable links to the old site New site
Get the content off the old site onto the new site ( means delete content )
Set up 301 redirects from the valuable linked pages on old site to new site
Tel GMB about the new site
Tell Google Search Console the domain changed

That probably will do it

other may add, it is after all 7:40pm on a Friday

 

[Fagin2021]

Taking this into account i presume that the only option is to start a new website from scratch as i presume it would be overly complicated to change the name of the URL along with the business name and location just to keep the existing websites content?
TIA

I'm not a techie but I'm not so sure it would be complicated. If you keep your current web pages but just change the TLD URLs (top level domain) then you should be able to do a global redirect...
eg. mysite.pagename.html to..
mynewsite.pagename.html
... and the pages shouldn't lose any rankings.

This could be baloney but check it before you make any radical decisions.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Alan Nailed it in his reply, it isn't as complicated as it seems, what you need is to grab someone who knows what they are doing and work with them to transition between the two sites and GMB's.

This is actually an opportunity to combine the value of BOTH entities, and not how you are perceiving it, that being as a setback.

Feel free to reach out to me if you want more advice, how you handle this is crucial, there are a series of steps to take and providing you stick with them you can really make hay.