I currently have a website which is primarily dedicated to books that I have written, books on statistical testing. Now I want to return to freelance research and data analysis, as well as continuing to sell my books.
From an SEO point of view, am I better to create a new site dedicated to reseach, or would it make more sense in terms of related content to extend the old site?
In case people want to check out the current site, here it is: www.coledavis.org
My idea is to replace the ‘portfolio’ page with a survey analysis page.
(Presumably, I really ought to get a flashy new website instead of my old-fashioned DIY HTML site.)
Not necessarily. Depending upon your target demographic, you may want to stick to old-fashioned… at least a little bit.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dislike or hate things that are modern, or using the latest whatever. I do dislike using bleeding-edge anything for the sake of using bleeding-edge anything, or using it because everyone else is, or using it because it looks cool. Take into consideration page-weight, and then wonder how many of your targeted users are on dial-up, or slow ADSL internet connections. Believe it or not, there are still people using Internet Explorer 7 or 8, which doesn’t work well with many HTML5 elements. Granted, they are in the minority; but you have to consider whether or not you feel comfortable alienating that percentage of your target audience.
Make it “flashy” (and by that I hope you don’t mean to use actual Flash), but keep it to a tasteful optimization.
As you thought, it is better creating new website, because even website design and content is not good or not related to targeted topic, customers mightn’t like your website. If say specifically, even though they visit your website, they mightn’t reach you because of unrelated things.
Thanks, folks. To inform more: The audience is likely to be research managers, particularly in small to medium size charities. I doubt if I need to worry about mobile phones, particularly mobile only. Any more opinions will be gratefully received. Cole
I think that the reference to mobile apps was just a shameless plug, not related to the OP. But if you are re-creating the site it may be worthwhile making it responsive this time to cater for mobile devices. That should help SEO, since mobile users are an ever growing proportion of web users.
Using tables for layout as the site does now is somewhat frowned upon these days.
I would keep the domain, but make a fresh new site incorporating all your stuff.
