Considering an acquisition? What’s your strategy with the acquired domain? How are you going to handle the SEO problem? No idea? Read on for some tips!
The biggest thing to remember is that you don’t want to lose any search equity that has been built over the years. SEO is hard enough so don’t make it harder for yourself. Both domains (your primary domain and the acquired domain) will rank for important keywords and drive qualified referrals to your content. It’s critical to plan this out so you don’t lose customers. Use these steps as a guideline:
Create a map that identifies any content overlaps or gaps with the existing site and the acquired site.
Create a report to identify the search engine performance (rank, traffic, etc.) for the main site and the acquired site. This will help you do a side-by-side comparison.
Prioritize the keywords that map best to the acquired site’s content.
Map out a redirect strategy.
You’ll most likely run into a couple of different scenarios, as outlined below.
Target keywords rank well for both sites
This is the easy one. Place a 301 redirect on the acquired site’s ranking page to the page on your main site that also ranks. Make sure to consider migrating any content on the acquired site’s page that may improve the performance in rank or will help it convert.
Target keywords rank well for the acquired site but there is no similar content on the main site
You’ll need to go through a content migration process. Prioritize this by creating a list of your “Top 25 Keywords” that are critical to your business. Take the ranking URLs for each of those keywords, assess the content on each, and create new content/URLs on your main site. The end goal is to have your main site rank for those important keywords.
Target keywords do not rank well on either site
First, create a paid search campaign ensure you are in-market for those important keywords your customers are using. This will give you time to create some relevant content on your main site and follow SEO guidelines to improve organic search visibility.
The biggest thing to remember is that you don’t want to lose any search equity that has been built over the years. SEO is hard enough so don’t make it harder for yourself. Both domains (your primary domain and the acquired domain) will rank for important keywords and drive qualified referrals to your content. It’s critical to plan this out so you don’t lose customers. Use these steps as a guideline:
Create a map that identifies any content overlaps or gaps with the existing site and the acquired site.
Create a report to identify the search engine performance (rank, traffic, etc.) for the main site and the acquired site. This will help you do a side-by-side comparison.
Prioritize the keywords that map best to the acquired site’s content.
Map out a redirect strategy.
You’ll most likely run into a couple of different scenarios, as outlined below.
Target keywords rank well for both sites
This is the easy one. Place a 301 redirect on the acquired site’s ranking page to the page on your main site that also ranks. Make sure to consider migrating any content on the acquired site’s page that may improve the performance in rank or will help it convert.
Target keywords rank well for the acquired site but there is no similar content on the main site
You’ll need to go through a content migration process. Prioritize this by creating a list of your “Top 25 Keywords” that are critical to your business. Take the ranking URLs for each of those keywords, assess the content on each, and create new content/URLs on your main site. The end goal is to have your main site rank for those important keywords.
Target keywords do not rank well on either site
First, create a paid search campaign ensure you are in-market for those important keywords your customers are using. This will give you time to create some relevant content on your main site and follow SEO guidelines to improve organic search visibility.
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