How do you set up a sister site for seo?

[buckapple]

Hello,

I have a blog that is a couple of years old. The more I learn about seo, ie silo, I realize I didn't really set the blog up correctly to start with. I've heard with a blog it's better to leave it alone if it's been going awhile because if I start moving posts around or rearranging categories, etc. I'm going to end up with a bunch of 404 errors and may even blow the blog up.

So it was recommended to do a sister site. For example say you have a site on hypnosis, and under that topic there is quit smoking, weight loss, reduce stress, etc.

If I was to do a sister site (to build the empire as they say) what is a good way to do this? with subdomains like: http://quitsmoking.myhypnosis.com .... http://wieghtloss.myhypnosis.com ....http://reducestress.myhypnosis.com ...with of course myhypnosis.com being the mothership.

Or do you do add-on domains instead with each subtopic with it's own URL

Or for the bigger picture concerning the empire is it better for seo to use Squidoo lens, or blogger or whatever for the sister sites since I'm starting from scratch on these?

I hope these questions are not too scattered for the topic which is instead of trying to redo an old site structure what is the best way to do the sister sites from scratch so I get the Seo going correctly and help the empire overall?

Thanks so much!

[dburk]

Hi buckapple,

There are so many ways to approach this. I would suggest that you create categories in the structure that makes the most since. Then start posting all you new material into this new structure.

At your convience, you can move a handful of pages at a time and leave a 301 permanant redirect in the old url location. The search engines will automatically update their index over a period of a week or two. You want to leave behind a redirect page that has a notice to vistors that the page has moved and to update their bookmarks.

As long as you own the domain you can keep the old urls live with the redirect page and you will not suffer in any significant way. Your site will benefit from its new structure and nothing will be lost. This would be a better solution than a sister site, why spread your sites pagerank and authority when it benefits you more to concentrate it?

[buckapple]

Hi Dburk,

This is sounding good, I was under the impression that it was not so easy. Is there a plugin that does the housekeeping like you suggested? (301 permanant redirect) or can you direct me somewhere that talks about this?

Thanks,
Gary

[dburk]

Hi Gary,

A 301 redirect is pretty easy to do without a plug-in.

301 Redirecting Wordpress Posts

There are plug-ins available:

WordPress › Redirection WordPress Plugins
Permalink Redirect WordPress Plugin | SYP

[Ldimilo]

Hi buckapple...I am right there with you...it seems like the more you learn, the more you realize that you have done wrong, right?

The only time I have used subdomains (other than with a MU wordpress network) was when I was siloing my sites with similar themes but different niches.

It sounds like you are on the right track though.

[zoobie]

well, you seems like doing all the things with a single domain.... I will concentrate a single niche in a domain and do another domain with others niche.
but what are you trying to do with your domain? a framed affiliate site?

by the way a framed site is a bad idea in terms of SEo... unless you make use of noframes tag with your keywords and interconnect your home page with other pages within a site.

[buckapple]

Hello Zoobie,

The site is an affiliate site with a couple of my own products.

I've heard of frames if that is what you are referring to, I'm not using them.


Cheers

[abibakar]

Make a parent category with few of children categories such as:

(parent category) playing golf
(children category)how to play golf
(children category)golf stuff
etc

this will be a good silo structure