2 Businesses 1 Website

[JIMMY C]

Hey everyone. I'm a Fine Art photographer and have been selling my prints online through my website for 2 years now and have moved into the wedding photography side of photography this past year and am getting super busy and am having lots of people ask to see my work but when you go to my website it's just the prints I sell. Curious if I should create a separate website and keep the 2 completely separated or if I should redo my site and have 2 links that guide clients for Portraiture/Wedding/Family Pics and to buy prints. I've looked and doesn't seem like many other photogs do this. ADVICE??

[Harold Mansfield]

One website, all of your work and services. No need to over complicate things and run 2 websites for the same company doing similar things.

[fr33lanc3r]

Your subject line states 2 businesses, 1 website.

If you have two separate businesses that you are wanting to promote separately, then it would makes sense to build 2 websites.

It sounds like the wedding site would be more of a portfolio while the other is e-commerce.

[Ironclad Systems]

Hey everyone. I'm a Fine Art photographer and have been selling my prints online through my website for 2 years now and have moved into the wedding photography side of photography this past year and am getting super busy and am having lots of people ask to see my work but when you go to my website it's just the prints I sell. Curious if I should create a separate website and keep the 2 completely separated or if I should redo my site and have 2 links that guide clients for Portraiture/Wedding/Family Pics and to buy prints. I've looked and doesn't seem like many other photogs do this. ADVICE??

I would recommend simply creating a new page on your existing website with your wedding portfolio as a gallery, then add a clearly visible link on the front end of the website.

[turboguy]

There are no hard and fast rules. I have one business and 8 web sites for it. I think it depends on why you want two web site and if there is a reason it might be more effective for you. Either way could be fine.

[RjMaan]

I think one good site is good for your requirement.

[gimli]

Agreed there is no set way. However your website that has been up and running this long may have built a good reputation with google and users. If you start a new website regardless if its poiting to the old domain or the old domain is pointing back to it, google will see that as a new site , it will struggle in the serps for a while. If it were me I would adjust my homepage to include a small section on services and add something about weddings there. Then add a detailed weddings page under the services section. Two sites is complicating things, and alot of people dont know this but google does not like redirecting one domain to another straight after a search result, because in essence google is after fulfilling the users request and the would be the site the were redirected to.

[Harold Mansfield]

Agreed there is no set way. However your website that has been up and running this long may have built a good reputation with google and users. If you start a new website regardless if its poiting to the old domain or the old domain is pointing back to it, google will see that as a new site , it will struggle in the serps for a while. If it were me I would adjust my homepage to include a small section on services and add something about weddings there. Then add a detailed weddings page under the services section. Two sites is complicating things, and alot of people dont know this but google does not like redirecting one domain to another straight after a search result, because in essence google is after fulfilling the users request and the would be the site the were redirected to.

Agree with this 100%. Take it from someone who has had multiple websites for years, it's basically starting over. Instead of concentrating on your business overall, now you're trying to promote an entirely new entity...splitting your productive time. Keep it as simple as possible for both yourself and your potential customers.

[tallen]

The original poster hasn't been active on the forum for about 9 months, but I would argue that he doesn't really have two businesses -- he's a photographer who has multiple aspects to his work: fine art, weddings, portraits, but it's all still just him -- so I would agree, one website but with different pages on the site for the different aspects of the one business.

But my reason for posting now is to describe a situation where I think multiple business entities each with their own independent website makes sense -- my family and I are involved in a pair of businesses, the second one is co-located on the property of the first one, there is some overlap in the customers between the two businesses, and we have employees who work part-time for both businesses, but the two businesses are separately incorporated, actually have different owners (although still all in the family), and have separate independent websites, along with each their own insurance, bank account, payroll accounts, etc.... And the reason for all of this is...

Liability protection.

By organizing in this way, the substantial assets of the first business are -- theoretically -- protected from any claims made by "injured" customers of the second business (fortunately this is all still in the hypothetical, 5 years running...)

[Overflow Cafe]

If the past two years have been great in profit for you, creating another site would not be much of an issue if you decided to go through with it. We have hundreds of clients that always sign up with our SEO service with two or more business ideas, meaning they want to have multiple websites. But we always recommend to stick to one website and one business idea.