Do I make this umbrella site?

4 replies
I'm looking for advice for something I'm considering doing with my sites. I own a dog training company. It takes the form of:

- Dog Training Utah - CommuniCanine. A Utah based dog training company. We train dogs locally here in Utah and our reputation has extended outside the state enough to where we get a decent amount of people who send us their dogs from out of state to train or fly me out to them to work with their dogs.

- Dog Training and Puppy Training Online. We've taken our methods and filmed them and put them on DVDs. This is an authority site with lots of articles, blog posts, free videos, etc.

Here are my challenges:
- DogBehaviorOnline gets easily 20x more traffic than CommuniCanine but makes FAR less money. CommuniCanine brings in $10's of thousands per month which is easier to do with less traffic because our average customer is worth $1500 or so. The site converts well, about $30-$40 per visitor but the ability to scale is more difficult as it's a service business and you can't just go out and hire a new dog trainer when business scales up.

- DogBehaviorOnline is all screwed up. I know it. Don't bother to tell me. It does an awful job at letting people know what they're there for, has an awful bounce rate, doesn't funnel people in the right directions, etc. But with the amount of traffic it gets I'm convinced there is $10's of thousands waiting.

CommuniCanine generally gets Utah traffic and DogBehaviorOnline generally gets national and international traffic. Nearly all of it is organic on both sites.

I'm considering creating one site that is an umbrella site that encompasses both. The reasons I WANT to do this are:

- Neither site brands ME very well. I want to be a central figure that has a system, both in person and DVD, that is the best out there for training a dog.

- It's disjointed. I've got these offerings here, those there, etc. I want to bring it all under one roof for more cohesion.

My concerns, and the reason I'm posting are:

- Will I lose my organic traffic? Let's say I name the pages the same, do 301 redirects, etc. am I at risk of losing rankings and traffic? If so, how difficult is that to get back?

- Is it stupid to have one product I'm trying to sell nationwide and one service I'm trying to sell locally and have them under one roof? Will this further confuse people? If someone in Utah happens upon the site will they have a hard time seeing that we train dogs locally? If someone in Iowa hops on the site will they have a hard time thinking we're anything but a Utah dog training company?

I'm stressed right now. We've got 6 employees who depend on the local business and I'm worried that by tweaking what we have I'll put their jobs in jeopardy. I'm also worried that I'm leaving money on the table if I don't do a better job at creating a more cohesive offer to the market, both local and national.

I'd love to hear your collective wisdom.

Thanks.
#make #site #umbrella
  • Profile picture of the author dean20653
    Why don't you just tone down the training site? Make it a squeeze page or a simple pre sales page that leads back to your main site say at like http://communicanine.net/training/DVDs/
    or whatever.

    Just a thought.
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    • Profile picture of the author LastWarrior
      I'm not sure what Google would do for your organic search if you propose that sort of change. Myself I would be thinking since the training site is doing well, leave it alone and since the DogBehaviorOnline is the site that is lacking sales, focus on that.

      You say DogBehaviorOnline has 20x the traffic, then you have a goldmine. You've nailed down some of the problems it appears, why not then focus on fixing those problems? Work on conversion, get that bounce rate down.

      On the internet marketing aspect side of things, in the most crucial property you have on your site, above the fold, I see "Dog Training DVD's". If it were me, I'd work on a headline that would entice people to dig deeper into the site to view the offers available instead of what's there now.

      I then scroll down to another vital area that you can use to help sell your products. Instead I see an area that has 2 articles or blog posts. The second one is not bad because it's shorter, but the top article talks about pitbull attacks and goes on ending with 1,610 words! Who wants to read a 1,610 word article on the first page of a site?.. and it may not even apply to their situation.

      From the Dog Training DVD's link, I clicked that and was really surprised as to the layout. It looked good to me. I did see something that may help though. You and I have seen those massively long squeeze pages where they have the headline, sub-head, body copy, testimonials, ya da ya da, then the "extras" to finally the guarantee and buy button.

      Well, after I clicked I checked out the Manners, Destruction, and Behavior Problems Beside that was your eDesign package of a book & DVD's. There were only 74 words to help support the sale of $87 DVD. I would think of more to say in that area that speaks of benefits to the viewer as to why they should purchase, but not as long as a long squeeze page or that article on the first page!

      I clicked further and watched part of the supporting video. I thought this was a great idea and from what I watched, it seemed very good to me. However, I always get nervous when I have a video in front of me and I have no clue on how long it is.(hint, hint)

      Hope that helps some.

      LastWarrior
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      • Profile picture of the author TyBrown
        Originally Posted by LastWarrior View Post

        I'm not sure what Google would do for your organic search if you propose that sort of change. Myself I would be thinking since the training site is doing well, leave it alone and since the DogBehaviorOnline is the site that is lacking sales, focus on that.

        You say DogBehaviorOnline has 20x the traffic, then you have a goldmine. You've nailed down some of the problems it appears, why not then focus on fixing those problems? Work on conversion, get that bounce rate down.

        On the internet marketing aspect side of things, in the most crucial property you have on your site, above the fold, I see "Dog Training DVD's". If it were me, I'd work on a headline that would entice people to dig deeper into the site to view the offers available instead of what's there now.

        I then scroll down to another vital area that you can use to help sell your products. Instead I see an area that has 2 articles or blog posts. The second one is not bad because it's shorter, but the top article talks about pitbull attacks and goes on ending with 1,610 words! Who wants to read a 1,610 word article on the first page of a site?.. and it may not even apply to their situation.

        From the Dog Training DVD's link, I clicked that and was really surprised as to the layout. It looked good to me. I did see something that may help though. You and I have seen those massively long squeeze pages where they have the headline, sub-head, body copy, testimonials, ya da ya da, then the "extras" to finally the guarantee and buy button.

        Well, after I clicked I checked out the Manners, Destruction, and Behavior Problems Beside that was your eDesign package of a book & DVD's. There were only 74 words to help support the sale of $87 DVD. I would think of more to say in that area that speaks of benefits to the viewer as to why they should purchase, but not as long as a long squeeze page or that article on the first page!

        I clicked further and watched part of the supporting video. I thought this was a great idea and from what I watched, it seemed very good to me. However, I always get nervous when I have a video in front of me and I have no clue on how long it is.(hint, hint)

        Hope that helps some.

        LastWarrior
        Yes, those are great ideas for increasing conversions. Some I've thought of, others I haven't.

        I'd like to implement that kind of stuff but I'm thinking that branding and opportunities for cross sells, 'creating celebrity', etc. would improve with a site much more branded around me. And that's what I'm trying to figure out, is if one can consolidate sites and make it work for traffic and such?
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    • Profile picture of the author TyBrown
      Originally Posted by dean20653 View Post

      Why don't you just tone down the training site? Make it a squeeze page or a simple pre sales page that leads back to your main site say at like http://communicanine.net/training/DVDs/
      or whatever.

      Just a thought.
      If I do that, what is a strategy for traffic if I've only got a pre-sale site? Right now it's all organic, wouldn't I lose that if I got rid of all those pages?

      And how does one build authority and 'celebrity' with a squeeze page site?
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