I've been asked to have a look a friends' website(s) because he's having trouble getting first page Google rankings on search terms that are almost identical to the domain names. I think it might be because each of the three websites are almost identical but I'm by no means a pro so I thought I'd seek some advice.

 

The search terms in question are "scrap yard Burnley" and "scrap metal Burnley" and those are the domains of two of his 3 websites (all .com) and I'm wondering if having three separate identical websites could be what is hindering their ranking?

 

I'm definitely going to speak to him about getting two of those hosting packages removed and use URL forwarding, along with adding some basic SEO to his main site but might there be any problems cause by any of this?

 

I appreciate your advice.

These sound like really dated spammy 'SEO' tactics. 3 sites with identical content (e.g. 90% +) I'm surprised they have made it this far, although it sounds like they are struggling. I'd say convert all three into one, and make the single site be companyname.com if you've got it. EMDs (exact match domains) have lost a lot of weight, in fact Google for 'scrap yard west sussex' or 'car breaker west sussex' etc and you'll see gwbirdges.co.uk in the top 10. They use just one single domain, the search terms are from the content.

 

Three sites (apart from duplicate content) will also make the job of offsite optimisation harder as you would need to share the efforts across 3 urls. If you want to get serps for Burnley get creative with your services; do they collect vehicles for scrap? If so where from (e.g. Burnley + 10 miles)? There might be other location based searches they are missing out on (although I don't know the Burnley area).

 

It does sound a bit of a mess. Before deciding which websites to axe I would look through analytics and keep the one in the best condition / positions.