Should your secondary brand have a separate website
Darren Langley Web Design
Every website in the world has a purpose for existing.
Whether it is for seeking advice, stocking up on knowledge, making purchases, or generating brand retention, websites exist to meet bigger goals.
Websites are often used to gain insights and recommendations on food, travel, and shopping, but many point users in the direction of a third-party provider.
This is fantastic if you have a website with the secondary brands users typically need.
However, there is a downside: When a website redirects their users to you, you may get the short end of the stick with disgruntled customers at the end of the visitor flow.
The common problem with general websites
Umbrella websites that house secondary brands often have visitors leaving out of frustration when they are unable to find the information they need.
Let’s face it: visitors and consumers see convenience as a must. If your website is so jam-packed with information that users struggle to find what they need, you will struggle with generating sales. Although the thought of satisfying impatient customers with your current info-packed website might seem nothing short of exhausting, perhaps the way out of your predicament is with a separate website for your secondary brand.
Before you contact your website developer and request for a different website for your secondary brand ASAP, you need to ask yourself one very important question: “should my secondary brand have a separate website?”
2 factors to consider
In order to answer the question of whether or not you should build a separate website for your secondary brand, you need to understand the circumstances that surround it.
Here are two important factors that you will need to consider during the decision-making process:
// Your available time and resources
A common issue that comes with running an umbrella website and a separate website (or websites, in some cases) is that the entire maintenance process can take a toll on your resources.
Remember that having a separate website means that you’ll have to deal with more costs, such as design and development expenses, optimization fees, consultancy charges, and hosting charges. Aside from the costs, the time needed to maintain a separate website is another major factor.
You will have to keep both sites updated in terms of both code and content. Most of the time, you’ll find that secondary websites are completely different in terms of brand strategy and brand voice.
As a result, you’ll have to spend even more time and money developing a separate marketing and content plan. Should you find yourself with enough finances and free time, then a separate website is something that’s definitely viable and worth chasing after. That said, if you’re still new and consider your business an SME, you may be better off having all the necessary information in one place.
// The risks of duplicate content
Rather than develop an entirely new marketing and content plan for a separate website, some businesses opt to duplicate content to save time and money. This isn’t a good idea for one simple reason: the internet has eyes everywhere.
There’s no doubt that someone out there will notice an instance of duplicate content. Aside from not actually improving the user experience (UX), duplicate content can cause both your parent and secondary website to tank on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Additionally, the risks of having duplicate content are so significant because it can cause confusion among your visitors, leading to higher rates of dissatisfaction and drop-off.
Conclusion
A separate website for your secondary brand can be a fantastic idea but only if it is completely different from the parent brand, has a distinct target audience and voice, and will use unique content that can’t be found on the umbrella website.
Darren Langley Web Design are a Birmingham web design agency specialising in web strategy - get in touch today by emailing hello@darrenlangley.com or call 0121 728 8168 and find out how we can help.