Multiple websites for one business: what Pilotech and Ginov taught me

Multiple websites for one business can win you more searches, or split your effort until nothing ranks. I have seen both with the same founder. I have worked with Pilotech, an air conditioning and ventilation installer near Paris, for two years, and built several websites for its founder. One sells something very specific and ranks first or second on Google. Another offered too many services and did not work at all.

The difference was not the platform. It was focus: each site that works speaks to one audience about one line of products, with content of its own. The founder’s other company, Ginov, taught the same lesson at company level.

Below: how Pilotech’s sites are organised, why they work, what they cost, the Google rule that turns extra sites into spam, and a checklist to run before you buy a second domain. This is one chapter of the Pilotech SEO case study, which tells the story from the first site to the first leads.

Ginov and Pilotech: one founder, two opposite results

Ginov was Pilotech’s sister company, owned and run by the same founder. It offered businesses in Paris and the Île-de-France a long list of building trades: electrical work, plumbing, air conditioning, maintenance, facility management, even water softeners for restaurant kitchens. The French have a word for it: fourre-tout, a catch-all. Ginov closed, while Pilotech, with one specific offer, took off.

Pilotech’s offer is narrow on purpose: air conditioning, heat pumps and ventilation, with a rare speciality, Teknopoint air conditioning with no outdoor unit, for buildings where a unit on the façade is not allowed. The Ginov project page shows how wide the other offer was.

A broad offer is a natural reflex: when your team can do many things, saying so feels safer. Search does not reward it. A site that does everything matches no search precisely, and each trade it lists competes with specialists who do nothing else.

The websites followed the same pattern. Of the sites I built for this founder, one did not work at all: it offered too many services, it was too broad. The one that ranks sells very specific services. For me, it shows how much well-done SEO matters, and it is why the founder chose several sites for Pilotech: the same services on each (advice, installation, maintenance, a quote), but a different line of products.

How Pilotech’s four websites are organised

Pilotech sells three lines, and each has its own site on its own domain. A fourth site presents the company as a whole.

The first site was built on Squarespace; the others are custom-coded, the Toshiba and VMI sites with Jekyll, a static site generator. The Pilotech portal and unified site are built and ready to go live. Squarespace is a closed platform, with no access to the source code, yet that first site ranks first or second: get the keywords and the metadata right and the platform matters less than people think.

Why four sites instead of one? My short answer: different audiences, sharper SEO, and it works.

When multiple websites for one business make sense

Separate sites work for Pilotech for three reasons, and you can check each of them before you build anything.

Each audience searches in its own words. Someone in a Haussmann flat looks for air conditioning without an outdoor unit. Someone with mould on the bedroom wall does not search for positive-input ventilation: they search for the problem. Someone replacing old radiators compares heat pumps. A site built around one of these searches answers it from the home page down, and its titles, headings and menus all speak the same language.

Each site has enough to say on its own. Six Teknopoint ranges, ten Toshiba ranges, seven ventilation units and 21 articles on damp and ventilation: none of the sites is a thin copy of another, and each would be a complete website without the others.

Each site can take the enquiry by itself. On every site, a visitor can browse the range, read the details, download a brochure where there is one and ask for a quote. No site exists only to push people somewhere else, which matters for the rule in the next section.

A focused site also helps outside search. Pilotech’s cold emails, sent to Paris restaurants, offices and shops and above all to architects, invite people to call and to look at the catalogue on the website. The emails carry no links, so people look the site up themselves; when it talks about one thing only, it can do part of the convincing before the phone rings.

The costs and traps of running several sites

Extra sites are never free, and two of these traps can cost you rankings.

Doorway pages

Google’s spam policies describe doorway abuse as sites or pages created to rank for specific, similar searches, which lead visitors to intermediate pages that are less useful than the final destination. Two of its examples fit this topic exactly: several websites with slight variations of the address and home page, and several domain names aimed at specific towns or regions that all funnel visitors to one page. Sites that break these policies can rank lower or disappear from the results.

The classic version is one site copied onto ten domains, one per town, each sending visitors to the same contact page. Pilotech’s sites are the opposite: different products, different content and a complete path to a quote on each.

Duplicate content

Pasting the same text onto two sites earns you nothing. When pages are the same or very similar, Google picks one as the canonical version and usually shows that one, which may not be the page you wanted to rank. That is why the copy of Pilotech’s unified site was rewritten, not pasted: it must not compete with the three existing sites in search.

Rewriting also showed that the existing sites did not always give the same figures for the same product, so I settled each point and listed what Pilotech had to confirm. Sites drift apart over time, and someone has to keep the facts in line.

Upkeep, multiplied

Every site has its own domain to renew, its own hosting or platform plan, its own legal pages and privacy policy, its own analytics and its own Search Console property. A new phone number, a price change or a discontinued range has to be updated everywhere. The unified Pilotech site is built from data and one template, so a new range appears in its menus, catalogues and sitemap on its own. That kind of shortcut only works inside one site: between separate sites, every change is made on each one, so four sites mean roughly four times the upkeep.

Reviews and links do not follow you

Your Google reviews belong to your Business Profile, not to a website, and Google’s guidelines say not to create more than one profile per location. The profile links to one site, so the others have to show the reviews themselves: the Toshiba site carries Pilotech’s Google rating in the header of every page, and the portal shows real reviews in a carousel. My Google Business Profile setup tutorial covers the profile itself.

Links work the same way. A new domain starts with no links and no history, so a second site builds its authority from zero, however well known the first one is.

One strong website or several: how to decide

For most small businesses, one site with a strong page for each service is the better choice. It builds authority on one domain, costs less to run and is far easier to keep accurate.

Stay with one website if:

• you have one audience, or your services are often bought together;
• a second site would mostly repeat the first;
• one small team has to keep everything up to date;
• your site is new: one domain building authority beats two starting from zero.

Consider a separate site if:

• a line has its own audience, who search in their own words: keyword research gives you two different lists;
• that line has enough products, questions and content to fill a site on its own;
• buyers search by brand or by product name, as they do for a manufacturer’s ranges;
• you can pay for the upkeep, and each site can take an enquiry by itself.

In that case, give it a strong page on your main site, using my on-page SEO checklist, or a single landing page for a campaign: my comparison of a landing page vs a website explains which does what.

And if your real question is whether to run two businesses rather than two websites, read why Eden Flats made way for Eden Corporate Mobility.

Before you buy a second domain: a checklist

1. Run keyword research for each audience separately. If both lists come out the same, you need one site.
2. List the pages each site would have. If the second list fits on a few pages, make it a section of your main site.
3. Write original copy for every site. Never paste from one to the other, not even “for now”.
4. Choose the main site. It gets the link on your Business Profile; the others display your reviews.
5. Give each site a full path to a quote: a phone number, a form or an email on every page that sells.
6. Link the sites where it helps a visitor, as Pilotech’s portal does: one front door for people who know the name but not the line.
7. Set each site up properly: its own Search Console property, its own analytics and the local basics listed in my local SEO guide.
8. Budget the upkeep before the build: domains, plans and updates, times the number of sites.

If a second site passes every line, it can work as well as Pilotech’s do. If you hesitate on two or more, put the effort into one site with strong pages. You can always add a second site later, once the first one ranks.