Urgent help required...

[MrGreen]

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Hi guys n gals!

I have a dilemma that I hope you can help! I work for a lawfirm that has a website called Leading Best Personal Injury & Clinical Negligence Solicitors, Road Traffic Accident & Workplace Injury, Property Damage & Worker Compensation Claim Specialist with No Win No Fee. This is a site which we've had for nearly 4 years now and after much redesign and changing to and from SEO companies, we have finally started to see some results.

We do not currently carry out any PPC - strictly SEO. Very recently we bought a new generic domain (ICL) which is keyword rich. Now, the dilemma I have is how best to utilise this domain. APOLOGIES IN ADV FOR LENTGHY POST!:

I am speaking to various web developers at the moment and the options appear to be:
1) We create a brand new site for ICL pretty much along the lines of what we have with Lawclaim.net.
The advantages: we can utilise our new domain name.
Disadvs: we will have to design a whole new site with relevant content which will effectively be doing the same thing as our existing site. This means we will have to pay for 2 x SEO as well as the issue of finding different relevant content for the two. Also, the SEO will take us a long time to see results. As a small firm we don't really have the resources to do this.

2) We close our existing site and copy/paste it all to the new domain.
Advs: Quick & easy to do & it will give us a chance to create a new fresh design as well as utilise our new domain.
Disadv's: We'll lose our current goodwill (time/energy/money/following) from the old site and SEO will take some time for the new site to kick in.

3)We create a simple homepage on ICL with some relevant content and place links to Lawclaim.net
Advs: We lose no goodwill and it may help boost ranking over time to lawclaim. Disadv's: We just paid handsomely for a domain that does very little & we will still need to pay for design/SEO of ICL along with maintance of Lawclaim.

4) We do a redirect from lawclaim to ICL.
Advs: We will still keep the traffic we have from lawclaim.
Disadvs: Google picks up the redirect on next indexing and drops it thus meaning we still have the problem of losing goodwill.

5) We place a big java/image thingy on lawclaim saying "click her to visit new site"
Adv's: Google doesn;t pick it up and we maintain our ranking so far
Disadvs: looks tacky, creates a further barrier to entry

6) We just forget about ICL and sell it on
Advs: we can continue our reosurces on lawclaim
Disadvs: we may have just lost a great doamin name!

Whew!Thats the feedback I've had so far from techies. But I remain unconvinced.There must be a more smarter way of doing this...hence I come to you!

Thanks lots in advance- BTW, depending on what option I decide to take I'll be looking for a new SEO / web designer so let me know recommendations!

Thanks

[D-Mac]

7) Take Google's advice
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Best practices when moving your site

[MrGreen]

thanks for the reply- but from the comments on the page you gave- it doesn't seem to work v well- any thoughts?

ta

[D-Mac]

Moving to a new domain name is a gamble. Following Google's advice might reduce the risk.

If you consider the risk to be too great, I would go with option 1 - build a new site.
If you can't afford to take that route, then you might as well sell the domain. Perhaps keep it for a few years though, as the value will possibly go up.

I personally wouldn't bother with the other options you presented.

Summary
a) transfer the site Google's way
b) develop a new site
c) sell the domain

[dougs]

install wordpress on second site and create a new site

[MrGreen]

install wordpress on second site and create a new site

Ok...Any rationale behind that recommendation that I can try to understand??

[dougs]

You didn't ask for an seo lesson

Simple...you now have 2 chances to rank in Google

Wordpress is easy to install
Content is easy to write
Once you have worked how to get links for one site, you know how to get them for 2

Hey why not create 100 sites on the topic

Doug

[D-Mac]

Using wordpress is a good suggestion.

In simple terms:

- Pick a theme you like. There are loads here: Theme Viewer
- Pay someone to adjust the design of theme you like the most and install it on your webspace (perhaps half a days work)
- Create your own content without having to wait for the web designer to get back from holiday
- Get links - this is probably the most costly part
- Pay someone to install wordpress updates, and ensure you have backups of the database


It's probably the cheapest way you can get a good looking, search engine friendly with an adequate content management system.

[MrGreen]

thanks for that- sounds v interesting.

When you create a wordpress site- is that effectively just a blog? I like the clean looking lines of those sites (incidentally, our competitors i.e. non lawyers such as Claims Direct - Home have very good looking sites- is this something you can do with wordpress?)

[MrGreen]

thanks for that- Is there anywhere we can get 'better' lookign themes than that? and also do you know anyone good at adapting these kind of site?

Also, do wordpress sites automatically have good SEO properties? i.e. would we stille need a SEO company on baord for this site to rank good?
As for links- we've never paid for them before- but if we do SEO for ourselves on this new site, where do we buy these from??

MAny many thanks again.

[dougs]

Also, do wordpress sites automatically have good SEO properties?
YES


i.e. would we stille need a SEO company on baord for this site to rank good?
WP is only a tool....are you good with tools?

As for links- we've never paid for them before- but if we do SEO for ourselves on this new site, where do we buy these from??
When found out please inform me

[D-Mac]

When you create a wordpress site- is that effectively just a blog? I like the clean looking lines of those sites (incidentally, our competitors i.e. non lawyers such as Claims Direct - Home have very good looking sites- is this something you can do with wordpress?)

Yes, WP creates blogs, but you can easily strip out the bits of code that enable to leave comments, etc. It can function just like a 'normal' web site if you want.

A good wordpress designer can proably make the site as pretty as you like, so yes, something like Claims Direct is certainly possible. Obviously this takes a designer longer though, so your costs are going up (and search engine friendlyness possibly going down a bit)

There are loads of good WP designers around. I would do a search on google, and check out the portfolios.

There are some very nice themes here that can be modifed:
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/

I wasn't suggesting buying links as such, I was referring to the fact that you'll probably want to pay someone get links for you. Unless you fancy doing the web's most boring task yourself.

[MrGreen]

erm, not sure how good I am with 'tools' as I've never really tried them! May I ask what it is about Wordpress templates that makes them rank well?

thanks

[MrGreen]

Yes, WP creates blogs, but you can easily strip out the bits of code that enable to leave comments, etc. It can function just like a 'normal' web site if you want.

A good wordpress designer can proably make the site as pretty as you like, so yes, something like Claims Direct is certainly possible. Obviously this takes a designer longer though, so your costs are going up (and search engine friendlyness possibly going down a bit)

There are loads of good WP designers around. I would do a search on google, and check out the portfolios.

There are some very nice themes here that can be modifed:
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/

I wasn't suggesting buying links as such, I was referring to the fact that you'll probably want to pay someone get links for you. Unless you fancy doing the web's most boring task yourself.

great, thanks for that!

[dougs]

wordpress just makes seo easier....my advice from your questions:

go and get an seo