Optimizing for local search, subdomain versus new domain

• I've got a client that provides two somewhat unrelated services through one website. One is service offices, the other is a wedding venue and both are offered at the same location.

  The client wants to split the two services into two websites. At the moment, both services are doing quite well being found online even though they are operating from the same website. Obviously, I'd like to keep that going as best I can in terms of the favorable SEO.

  With that in mind I'm torn between getting a new domain for a stand-alone wedding-venue site or just having a subdomain like weddings.mainsite.com which would arguably be a better URL since the "mainsite" is already a keyword-relevant, recognizably historical and prestigious property.

  Is there any SEO benefit to the second option?

Answer:

Here's the problem; even though your client offers two services, they are both served at one location. Google's way of doing things is to offer ONE business listing per physical location, with a few exceptions such as doctors offices, multiple office locations, etc. In those situations, each business must have unique contact data for each listing including phone, postal, etc.

From what we're seeing by looking at your website, it's not multiple businesses, merely multiple services. Unfortunately, that won't qualify for more than one Google My Business listing which, as you undoubtedly know, is very important for a local business in a local market which clearly both of these services are based on.

Although you're referring to the domain and not the business listing, what you really want to rank well is the business listing for a local query. Even though the domain can rank well, it will likely be pushed further down the page.

So, to answer your question, you can split the services into two domains, but you shouldn't expect to get a second Google My Business listing that you can use to point at the wedding domain, nor can you expect the wedding domain to outrank the local listings.