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One big site or several smaller ones

by easy does it
19 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Simple question,

I want to get organic traffic and therefore I need lots of content to attract the search engines.

Let's say I'm in the IM market (it's not a Niche). I have products on Article Marketing and Traffic building etc.

It would be easier for me to build one big Internet Marketing site with articles on all the subniches I'm in, linking out to the sales pages, and because all my content is on one site my site will have better authority, and show up more on the search engines.

If I build a smaller site for each subniche I'm in it will take me ages to build those sites up. Sales will be better because the sites are more targeted.

What are your experiences or advice? Talk to me...

Tom
#big #site #smaller
  • Profile picture of the author PalatnkFactor
    Tom-

    I am a big believer in BIG SITES. I believe the bigger the site with good original content, the more authority you'll get from Google. It's simple.

    The larger the site, the more content you'll get and the more links you'll get towards that content. Theres nothing better than building a big hub because the linking possibilities are endless.

    NOW, It really depends on what your goal is and what you are trying to accomplish. Long-term vs. Short-term results and PPC vs. SEO.

    There is nothing better than a big website for SEO purposes for the reasons I explained above. Niche sites usually work great for PPC and pretty much do convert better depending on the landing page.

    I think big site is the way to go for an overall better SEO strategy.
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    • Profile picture of the author magnum3
      PFactor is right.. it all comes down to long term vs short term.. if your aiming for long term then build a smaller site for each subniche.
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      • Profile picture of the author easy does it
        Well guys,

        And I'm talking from a SEO and organic traffic perspective.

        I tend to agree with you PFactor. Content is king right. And as time goes on sites will require more content, than they do now, in order to maintain page rank. So a big site is at an advantage.

        (Magnum3, did you mean to say that big sites are better for a long term strategy?, which is how I believe it goes.)

        I know a few marketers who have internet marketing sites (covering a variety of internet marketing niches) as opposed to say a separate site for each of those niches. They're doing well. But even a few of them lost page rank in the last Google shake up. Is google tightening up the page rank categories?

        So we go with building a big site.

        The key then with a big site is to ensure that each piece of content, article, is optimized for a keyword. So whilst the site is broad in scope the content is very targeted, long tail keywords and all that.

        Any further comments. Alternative viewpoints. It certainly would be a lot easier to maintain one site.

        Tom
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  • Profile picture of the author scotl47
    I stay relatively small if there is not a location factor with the keywords. If it contains terms where somebody may search "keyword in Jacksonville", or "Jacksonville Keyword", I build large sites to include states/counties/major cities and etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author faverr
      It also seems to me with a big site you need to be careful that all of your content is pretty closely related or you run the risk of "losing points" for not being focused enough. Have you considered if there is a way to setup several sites that would not be much more difficult to feed content into than if they were all one large site?

      For example, there are ways to set up WordPress so that all posts go into one database using separate tables. The advantage to this is that it is easy to back up all your data from all your blogs at one time. Further, you may be able to find someone to set up WordPress so that it is easy to install plugins to all blogs that have been set up in a common area (not sure how easy it would be to find someone who could do this). Other applications to build web sites may have easier ways to set up multiple, separate domains/sites that are easy to maintain as a group.

      If that seems unwieldly, maybe 3 or 4 sites instead of just 1 (on the one hand) or a lot (on the other hand) would balance the "bigness" factor and the "targetted content" factor.
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      • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
        Originally Posted by faverr View Post

        It also seems to me with a big site you need to be careful that all of your content is pretty closely related or you run the risk of "losing points" for not being focused enough.
        I don't know that I would agree with you on that point (but feel free to prove me wrong ) -- look at sites like about.com or ivillage.com: different content on one site. Or ezinearticles, or squidoo. News sites have a variety of content (finance, health, arts, entertainment, etc.)

        ===================
        @all: I agree that it depends on your goals: SEO-wise, IHMO, one big site is better (which is what I have; it just keeps growing and growing...)

        Suzanne
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        • Profile picture of the author faverr
          [QUOTE=SuzanneH;249397]I don't know that I would agree with you on that point (but feel free to prove me wrong ) -- look at sites like about.com or ivillage.com: different content on one site. Or ezinearticles, or squidoo. News sites have a variety of content (finance, health, arts, entertainment, etc.)

          Yes, the sites you've brought up definitely contradict what I've said. However, I also believe it's true that a site that has a fair amount of content that's devoted to a narrow niche can usually outperform anything that comes from a site of the type you mentioned. These two ideas seem to contradict each other, and I'm not sure in my mind how to resolve the contradiction.
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          • Profile picture of the author Wendy Maki
            [quote=faverr;249547]
            Originally Posted by SuzanneH View Post

            I don't know that I would agree with you on that point (but feel free to prove me wrong ) -- look at sites like about.com or ivillage.com: different content on one site. Or ezinearticles, or squidoo. News sites have a variety of content (finance, health, arts, entertainment, etc.)

            Yes, the sites you've brought up definitely contradict what I've said. However, I also believe it's true that a site that has a fair amount of content that's devoted to a narrow niche can usually outperform anything that comes from a site of the type you mentioned. These two ideas seem to contradict each other, and I'm not sure in my mind how to resolve the contradiction.
            I think I might be able to help resolve the apparent contradiction.

            Google ranks pages, not entire websites. And, of course, that ranking is for specific search terms (of which there are gzillions), not a general ranking of *all* websites -- so there is the question of the quality of the keyword it is ranking for when you are looking at performance.

            Anyway... it is theoretically possible to have a large website that does not rank or perform very well but it has one completely off-topic page that ranks much higher than the rest of the site and gets tons of traffic. In practice, that isn't what usually happens.

            So... why does a larger site with all kinds of related pages often seem to do better than a small site?

            First, there's the obvious factor that when there are more pages there are just more chances to rank for some search term or other.

            But, in terms of this 'contradiction,' what's really at play is that in a large site there are lots of internal links that point to each page, saying what the topic of those pages are. Of course, that's assuming that the site's internal linking is done correctly from a keyword anchor text linking point of view.

            A small site can achieve something similar by having a lot of good keyword-laden external links pointing to the site.

            I have seen many one page sites, particular older style authority pages, that rank very highly without having been updated in years... depending on the keyword. I'm thinking especially of the old school kind of 'geeky' long long pages on some topic that has every bit of information ever gathered on a specific subject. But the same thing can be done with a sales page or any other small site.

            Hope that helps ;-)
            Wendy.
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  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    Maybe the two ideas don't contradict each other if we instead look at the volume of content? That is, a site that has a wide variety of unrelated content can do as well as site that has a narrow focus with a lot of content? Just thinking out loud here... (And I'm assuming we're talking strictly SEO here.)

    In my own experience, I have a website that is mostly focused on weight loss, but I now have a moms section and health section. A lot of the mom articles are totally unrelated to weight loss but bring in search engine traffic. I've been adding self-improvement, health and mom articles over the past year, and traffic just keeps growing and growing.

    But I think it comes down to what makes people stick around and come back, tell their friends,etc. A tight focus and separate websites would make more sense if someone has wildly different niches (let's say scrapbooking and tattoos).

    Suzanne
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  • Profile picture of the author Solidsnake
    Banned
    I would select one big site... I always believe focusing in ojne site is better than doing multi-task with lesser effect.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBlackSEO
    I think one big site will be the best way to go. Having a network of smaller sites will be a headache to grow. Also, with a big site you would benefit more from 'cross selling'.
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  • Profile picture of the author Oling
    I would always like to have bigger site than many smaller ones if i am thinking of the long term. Optimzied each of the pages and with more submission to directories and article submission to prominent article dorectories.

    oling
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  • Profile picture of the author montsa007
    Banned
    I'll stick to one small sites.
    Its better to have a stable income rather then complete shut down
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  • Profile picture of the author duitraya
    Well, what I do is setting 1 small site. I'm still thinking to create another niche, and how to link them up to each other.

    I guess it may be easier to control n monitor with less sites rather than having a lot of new sites (regardless big or small). Just my 10 cent opinion.
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    • Profile picture of the author VulcanMan750
      What I do is link smaller sites together rather than have a big broad website.

      For example, you could do something like this:
      have 1 site for sleep disorders, then several smaller sub-niche sites like
      1 site for snoring,
      1 site for sleep apnea,
      1 site for insomnia,
      etc...

      and then link them to each other.

      I built a few networks like this on a wordpress platform and they're doing really well with adsense and affiliate income.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnmiley
    Unless you know you can make some money, I wouldn't set up a big site.

    I recommend creating smaller blogs that pick up on keywords in a theme around your potential big site.

    For example, if you want to do a weight loss site (ultimately), seek out minimally competitive keywords that bring in 150-200+ daily visitors, with fewer than 50,000 competitive pages on that keyword...these smaller blogs will be built around specific KW's like "lose belly fat", "lose fat from thighs", etc--whatever KW draw traffic and relate to your potential BIG site (weight loss topics).

    These feeder sites should make you some sales (affiliate or your own product) first. Then, shape your big site as these kick in--you'll learn what KW are working (from smaller sites) which helps you build content on your big site. If "slimmer thighs" pulls, as a blog, you know it is good content for a page on your big site.

    This sounds like more work than it is, but you can do one blog per day (or two) and have one-two articles on each to start. If you have 6-10 blogs that pull 100-200 visitors a day, this traffic can point to your big site.

    I describe this in more detail on my Perry Marshall reviewed site, in a report I give away, but this is the theme I use.

    I've made too many big sites that didn't do anything, but gather tumbleweeds. So, I like to get a pulse on the real market before I invest a ton of time into a big site construction.

    And, FYI, blog platforms work well for this testing, because they are free, index quickly and are trusted by Search Engines--all positive factors to test out an idea.

    Good luck with your projects.
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  • Profile picture of the author PalatnkFactor
    I see there was some really good comment here from where the conversation started. I liked this topic so much and have heard this question asked from a lot of companies before so I blogged about it in a lot more detail here: Building A Large Website vs. A Niche Website | PalatnikFactor.com

    Did you get your answer resolved? What path are you going to take?
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  • Profile picture of the author scene4u
    I have always favoured creating the one large site to get the obvious SEO benefits that come from having a large site with lots of internal links. With regards to the sub niches I would recommend creating a individual page or even sub page for each of the sub niches.
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  • Profile picture of the author maestro2010
    IF it is really big then it must be popular enough to get more authorative regarding google....
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