One site or five sites for geo targeted industry

[OzDave]

OK I'm looking to try and generate traffic for people looking for accommodation.  I'm a big believer in the quality of the domain being used for SEO both in terms of the direct benefit of it having KW in it but also the effect on CTR a good domain can have.

So I'm considering these options:

1. Build a single site using the best, broad KW-rich domain I can get within my budget.  This might be something like CheapestHotelsOnline.com

Advantages:

• Just one site to manage/design
• One site to SEO/market
• Better potential to resell the site for a few million bucks

2. Build 5 sites, each catering to a different region using 5 matching domains within my budget.  These might be domains like CheapHotelsEurope.com, CheapHotelsAsia.com etc

Advantages:

• Can use domains that are many times 'better' by adding a geo-qualifier. This should help with CTR and search
• Can be more targeted with SEO & Marketing

So hopefully you see the point.  Is it worth the dilution of SEO & marketing activities to get the better domain names?

I'm chasing the longtail searchs whetever I do.  So I'll be creating 5K+ pages each targeting a specific area.  These would be pages like CheapestHotelsOnline.com/Europe/France/Paris or CheapHoteslEurope.com/France/Paris to target search terms targeting hotels in Paris

So with that thought, is SEO even 100% diluted?

Say, a link to the homepage of the first option would end up passing 1/5000th of value through to the Paris page.  However a link to the second option would pass 1/1000th of the link juice through to the Paris page.  So by thet logic, one only needs to do 1/5th of the work for each of the 5 sites ... that implies total SEO work would be the same?

Thanks as always for any help!

David

[OzDave]

Any other thoughts - I'm leaning towards the 5 sites idea but perhaps I'm overestimating the importance of the domain?

Thanks!

[EGOL]

Thank you Alan, I appreciate your kind words.

One valuable reason to answer questions is that whenever I have a question of my own folks like you and Steve O always put a little extra into answering.

[AlanBleiweiss]

"I shouldn't be telling this stuff."

LOL EGOL you know damn well that if weren't telling it, me or someone else would.  Sure, we're fools for giving this info out for free when we could be charging thousands.

Yet you also know how enriching it is to give back what was freely given to us, or that we earned the hard way and now have within us to want to help just for its own sake. 

And please - don't discount the true appreciation the rest of us who help out when we can here have for your contributions. You carry a lot of the burden in the Pro Q&A system.

[OzDave]

Yes you should!

Thanks I appreciate it.

[EGOL]

Lots of people think that they should build 25 sites to kickass on their competitor. Following that temptation will cause you to divide your time on a lot of projects that each will be puny against the competition.

Remember, SEO is like war and great generals know to divide the forces of their competitor and kickass on them one unit at a time with overwhelming force.  Don't divide your forces for the enemy.

The best route is usually to put ALL of your effort into a single site in one niche. Then when that site becomes the #1 ranking dominant site in that niche you can think about a second site that will rule the SERPs in one of your most profitable subniches - powered by links from your main site.

When you have that job done then move to another subniche. Save your KW domains for this effort.

Lots of people think that they should build 25 satellite sites to give links back to their main site... but I believe that the really successful strategy is to do the reverse.

I shouldn't be telling this stuff.

[OzDave]

Thanks for the reply, EGOL!

Yes that's a good way to look at it and I agree - the big domain.  That's why I said 'is the SEO 100% diluted' - I wanted to push the point that the off-page SEO would not be 5 x the SEO with 5 sites.

Say it's 50% diluted, then the overall question becomes:

Does it make sense to opt for 5 better quality domains if it means you'll have to put in double the off-page SEO work?

[EGOL]

Say, a link to the homepage of the first option would end up passing 1/5000th of value through to the Paris page.  However a link to the second option would pass 1/1000th of the link juice through to the Paris page.  So by thet logic, one only needs to do 1/5th of the work for each of the 5 sites ... that implies total SEO work would be the same?

Let's reverse the math.

Which do you think will win in a head to head battle for "cheap hotel in paris" ?

-   One big domain with 5000 backlinks

-   One small domain with 1000 backlinks

Whichever you think will win is where you should place your bets.

All of my money is on the big domain.