Hi,

I have been asked to produce a website that has offices in several countries across the globe.

They have asked me to advise what would be the the best way to structure their site or sites.

1.  Would it be best to have an individual website with it's own domain name in each country/location

2.  Or would it be best to have one main website with just one domain name with sub pages for each country / location.

I suspect the first option would be better for SEO and maybe easier to navigate from a users point of view - ie the homepage would automatically be in their preferred language.

But another question is maintaining the site/sites. Which would be the most efficient way to do that?

But I'm not sure. Can someone please give me some recommendations or advice about this please. Basically I need to know the best way to structure such a project.

 

Thanks for any advice in advance.



 

I need to clarify:

The first line should read "I have been asked to produce a website for a company which has offices in several countries"

Just in case I hadn't made sense.

Use one corporate domain name and sub domains for each country (in the local language).

I'd use wordpress multisite to do this. It meas you have a one dashboard from which you can maintain each subdomain. It also means you only need one theme and one set of centralised plugins.

Easy peasy.

 

For some reason, website structure is commonly overlooked. It can be seen as one of the most important aspects of a website search engine performance, but at the same time, not all website owners really know what it means to have a website structure that will enhance its search engine optimization.website should international work because to get more traffic over the websites.

1 hour ago, danielgreen said:

For some reason, website structure is commonly overlooked. It can be seen as one of the most important aspects of a website search engine performance, but at the same time, not all website owners really know what it means to have a website structure that will enhance its search engine optimization.website should international work because to get more traffic over the websites.

oh dear

I work for a company that had exactly this conundrum. Their answer - and in my mind the most fitting - is to have a core domain with contact info/ subpages for the country-specific offices. I would wholeheartedly avoid multiple domains, especially from a SEO perspective. You might be able to do more linking, but it will be splitting up your users in a very fragmented way. Moreover, unless the company is offering different services/products in different countries, there should be no need for individual sites, or to some degree even sub-pages. If they do offer different things, then it is good cause to create internal links within the main domain to the relevant country.

 

also, keeping a core domain does not mean that you cannot have it track locations of users to adjust the site to the relevant language (for instance).

Edited March 4, 20188 yr by MineralMinds

Using sub domains with country specific information and good internal link can really boost local ranking. So I'd always split an international site, there are more advantages than there are disadvantages