Niche vs One massive site
-
In the past I've done fairly well building niche sites for automotive accessories. The problem is, it's hard paying attention to 50+ sites after a while, and the quality ends up going down.
Because of this, I've decided to focus on one large site for trucks and their accessories. I have a site called truckprofile.com where people can create profile pages for their various trucks. It gets fair traffic for not doing much with it. I recently threw a blog on the site: truckprofile.com/blog. This will be my area for posting articles on niche, commonly searched, easy to rank for phrases.
So my questions are:
- Is building one massive site better?
- If so, how should I structure the blog area so that each article ranks well? Would it be better if they were well categorized pages in wordpress instead of blog posts?
- By posting all the articles on a single site, does that mean it will be harder to rank for any single thing since the topic is so broad?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
-
I appreciate your help. I saw the SEOmoz article this morning, thought it was appropriate
Andy
-
Well, what do you know? SEOmoz just put out a blog post today that could be exactly what you need! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success
-
I'd suggest a combination of B and C. If you have to compromise, don't compromise B for the sake of C. C could be compromised for the sake of B a little bit, but better to find the perfect balance of the two, of course.
As far as tags go, two basic things to remember is to only give something a certain tag if your post is about that tag/word or mentions it in great detail. If it only mentions it once in passing, maybe don't give it that tag.
Another practice that a lot of people use with tags is to keep them at one word each unless they're proper names or brands. For example, if you post is about truck brakes, add the tags "truck" and "brakes" rather than "truck breaks." Most people say don't go over 10 tags per post. I don't know how much that actually matters, but I usually abide by that and it works for me.
Side point: I'd strongly recommend installing a plugin like Yoast and noindexing all tag pages.
-
I appreciate your help : )
So for instance, if I write an article about a brand of truck bed liner, would I:
A: Create as many niche categories as I can to add that article, all relating to the topic of bed liners?
B: Pick a single, easy to rank for category for that article?
Pick a single category that readers will most likely recognize for that article?
Lastly, is there a good strategy I should be using for tags? Or should I leave tags alone?
Thanks again!
-
- Is building one massive site better?
For SEO and for your own peace of mind, yes. You'll only have one site to keep track of and to do SEO on. That site will build up authority over time, thereby getting better traffic and rankings.
- If so, how should I structure the blog area so that each article ranks well? Would it be better if they were well categorized pages in wordpress instead of blog posts?
The blog area should be a blog instead of Wordpress pages. Otherwise, why wouldn't you just make them regular pages the main part of your website? All you have to do is make a category for each niche.
- By posting all the articles on a single site, does that mean it will be harder to rank for any single thing since the topic is so broad?
Not necessarily. Google likes to rank authority sites. If you are maintaining 50+ sites, it would be safe to assume they do not get a lot of traffic and don't have a lot of authority. But with one site, you are getting all the traffic of the 50+ sites on a single site. The more you put into a SINGLE site the more it will gain authority. An internal page of a site with a DA of say 60, could easily outrank the homepage of a DA20 site.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should I include my 3 locations as keywords on various pages throughout my site or just the homepage and individual location pages?
For example, I'm optimizing for multiple industries and services. Should I add location keywords on each industry and service page? Construction CPA, Construction Accountant or Construction CPA, Construction Accountant, location, location, location I'm including location keywords on homepage and will have a unique contact us page for each location.
Keyword Research | | StacyDr0 -
Can keyword research be used across different similar sites in different countries?
I am assuming the answer to this question is no but confirmation would help. I have a site in the UK and a site in Spain both on the same topic but different copy and obviously language – therefore I am assuming it is not possible to produce keyword research on the UK site and use the results on the Spanish site?
Keyword Research | | Jason_Marsh1230 -
'And' vs '&'
Hi everyone This question has been running through my mind since a few days now. Does Google recognise 'and' / '&' as the same? Say for example my website url is: appleandorange.com and my keyword for my company is Apple & Orange. If i Focus on Apple & Orange for on-page SEO will google also recognise apple and orange ? Or will I have to on-page SEO seperately for Apple and orange? So for instance if I keep focusing on Apple & Orange will my website appleandorange.com appear on google? Thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | u_rauf920 -
How do you check keyword rankings for your sites?
The other day I used Rank Tracker form SEO PowerSuite and SEO small tools ranking checker http://smallseotools.com/keyword-position/ to check a keyword ranking. Both said that my clients keyword is not in top 50, but when I used Rank Tracker from Moz.com it showed that my client's keyword ranks #30 ! What's the tool that works for you all the time and is 100% reliable?
Keyword Research | | vitaliykolos1 -
How would you optimise a site for close variations of a keyword, such as [data capture + application/app/software/technology/tool/solution]
Hey all, We're a data capture app looking to optimise our site: akkroo.com. There are lots of industry-specific & use-case-based content pages we can create, but how should we optimise our site to capture traffic for keywords that could (almost) be classified as synonyms? Particularly, I'm thinking keywords such as: data capture app data capture application data capture software data capture tool data capture tools data capture technology etc. My industry-specific pages will all have completely unique content, but I'm struggling to work out how I should architecture pages that target keywords that are almost identical, such as the list above. The content on these pages would technically be 'unique', but each page would be very similar to one another. And how would we link to these pages internally? I can't really see it adding to the user experience, but I can't see how I can target all of these keywords without having individual pages for each... Thanks in advance for any help that can be shared; appreciate it! Brian
Keyword Research | | brandrsn0 -
Logging out of Google vs. &PWS=0 ?
I typically append &pws=0 to my Google queries when I'm gathering results to share with a client. I recently sat in on another digital marketing firms presentation to the client, and they made a big deal about how their search engineers had conducted all the searched by "painstaking logging out of google, using a fresh browser, etc..." In my mind I was thinking that it was either a search engineer wasting time, or some hyperbole to impress the client. But I didn't really know for sure. Is &pws=0 actually equivellent to using a completely annonymous browser. For fun, I ran some queries under incognito on chrome running off a thumbdrive, and compared them to &PWS=0 results from my everday browswer while logged into google. I couldn't see any difference, but in my quick informal test, I also didn't find any difference between a personal SERP and a &PWS=0 SERP, so maybe I just didn't try the right query. Any thoughts?
Keyword Research | | crvw0 -
Keyword analysis/optimization for blog sites (avoiding self cannibalization)
Hi there, I work on a site that has regular blog and article posts (or at least, we're shooting for regular), and I'm trying to work on a fluid approach for keyword analysis and optimization. I am wondering...is it best to research new keywords for each new post? I am unsure of what the effect is of optimizing multiple pages for the same keyword. I've been using the SEOmoz report card tool to grade my on page optimization, and I noticed one of the criteria was to avoid self cannibalization. Will I be competing against myself if I optimize multiple pages for the same keyword? I'm worried about what will happen in a month or two when I run out of common keywords and have to start optimizing our latest posts around really obscure keywords. Am I thinking about this the right way? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | MikeQ-BACC0 -
Is it bad to optimize for tier one keywords only?
Hello, My site is about personalized cards, and I have optimized (rank A) each sample page to the main topic of the card (eg: sapo pepe). So when people search for that keyword (sapo pepe), my page ranks high. Now, if instead of checking the optimization for "sapo pepe" I check for "cards sapo pepe" I get an F, because the keyword is not there. Thing is that people search for different tier 2 keywords, like "cards, models, examples, etc" and I cannot put that many keywords in the page... My question is: does Search Engines rank you high if you optimize your page for a subset of the keywords people search for? I understand that if someone optimizes for "cards sapo pepe" they would get higher than my site. Hope I was clear, any comment is appreciated! Thanks, MAriano
Keyword Research | | regalatufoto0