One big site for a loose theme or multiple sites for each specific theme?

[frantan]

Hi,

Our company produces content related to one loose overall theme. Within that we write content and sell products on three specific sub-themes. Some of our customers cross over and have an interest in two or all three themes and others are only interested in one.

At present we have one site covering reviews of products relating to all three sub-themes...

....and three other sites offering how-to guides and tutorials dedicated to each sub-theme.

We do not have a lot of time to commit to SEO and so we are considering merging the content we have on all three subjects into the one site covering them all.

Each of these sub-themes could have websites in their own right and my worry is that it will be harder to rank for these subject specific terms if the content is not on a site dedicated to that subject.

But of course if they were all together then any links we build will be consolidated into one big site.

Does anyone have any experience of this or have any advice on what the best thing to do would be?

Thanks for your help!

[EGOL]

Our company produces content related to one loose overall theme. Within that we write content.....

That much of your description matches how I spend most of my time.  I produce content for a single topic website with many many subtopics.  The informative content on the site enables it to compete strongly against powerful retail sites and other information sites.  Most of our profits come from ad revenue but we also have a store that sells products related to the overall topic.

Based upon conversion rates, profit margins and the CTR of our own ads we know the average eCPM for displaying our own ads to our website visitors.   We input that information into Google's DoubleClick ad server and that competes ads for our own store against all Adsense advertisers.  We are happy to make a retail sale and happy to give the visitor to a competitor or unrelated business that outbids the value of our own retail ads.

It is a mathematical approach.  We are authors first, retailers second.

About your one site vs multiple sites question.   In my opinion it is easier to attack with a battleship than ten potato guns.

If you have one site then all of the domain queries, links, mentions, likes, tweets, focus on a single property.  It is easier to build strength in once site than to build strength in ten.   Remember, in the SERPs it is one site against all others.  A potato gun will be ineffective.  I want to attack with the battleship.  That is the only way to beat amazon, ebay, about.com and all of the other sites that might appear in your SERPs.

Also, I do have two small sites, each of those is an info site with a specialized store and they are related to a topic of my main site.  The main site defeats one of them everywhere, but it succeeds because it has enormous content it its niche.  Far more than the main site.

The other site sells products related to the main site but there is not a content basis for it on the main site.  Again I use DFP to compete ads for these sites against adsense.