Importance of having a tightly themed sight and domain for ranking and SEO

[isle_surf]

I started the site 10 years ago as www.islesurfboards.com selling mainly surfboards and ranking mainly for surfboards, paddle boards came along and now paddle boards make up for 95% of all the business and we are missing alot of ranking in the paddle board related keywords so what is the best course of action?

my plans:

keep www.islesurfboards.com and keep it surfboards focused, create a new domain www.islepaddleboards.com and move all paddle board related content products etc over to this domain with redirects to transfer the link juice.

Doing this will still keep my surfboard site and all its long term domain credibility and i can offer a link over the the www.islepaddleboards.com site for people looking to buy paddle boards and vice versa on the new paddle board site for people looking to shop surfboards.

Would this be the best course of action or does can anyone offer any better suggestions. I know google supposodly has taken off much ranking emphasis of the domain but as i pick apart the competition who rank welll in the paddle board space they all have "paddleboards" in the domains and a paddle board specific site to keep it tightly themed which pays off across the board in content, ppc campaigns, and overall ease of use as surfboards and paddle boards are two seperate products and paddle boards is very hot right now so i dont want to stay commited to www.islesurfboards.com domain if its going to create confusion or not help me rank well for paddle boards leading into the future.

Any ideas? Thoughts on the best route to take?

[MickEdwards]

Billy and Dan are spot on. Not only is it feasible to have a new section on the site, you are doing what Google loves and introducing new informative content, growing your site and raising its overall value/authority. Google will have absolutely no issue with tightly relating any kind of surfing/board activity. Only consider if the new content is way off track - cake decoration classes or something.

I would just ensure the structure of your site is such that you have something like -

www.islesurfboards. com/paddle-boards/

rather than

www.islesurfboards. com/blah/blah/paddle-boards/

Another way of looking at this - if you have a successful site then where better to test the market, rather than investing time and money in a new site.

[Dan-Lawrence]

i agree with Billy

the 2 topic/genres are so closely related i think you will do best by developing out the current site rather than start a new site

[Vizergy]

Although I am certainly not saying that your proposed method is 'wrong' in the slightest... I would be more inclined to take advantage of the year's worth of authority on your old domain.

Surfboards and Paddle boards are certainly similar enough - it isn't like you are branching out in to game systems or lawn mowers.

I would create a paddle board section on the current website and optimize that section for the paddle board terms.

That is just me, though.  I see no issue with your proposed method except for having a new domain with no links and no time under its belt.

Cheers.