Which Site Building Approach Is Better?

[Bitcom]

Just a hypothetical discussion...

All things being equal (total cost, total time commitment) which way is better...

One 200-page site...

or

Ten 20-page sites?

Discuss...

Rick

[heatwave13]

Rick,

I don't have "THE" answer, but I know that when I'm using the internet, visiting a site, I would prefer the 20 pager that is more specific.

If I am visiting a huge site with over 200pages, it had better be easy to navigate to find what I need or I'll likely click my way out.

[imrat]

If the navigation is good, and the content relevant to the niche/market, then the 200 page site is better as a long term option in my view for both the "user" and the "owner".

Making your first $1 does not require you to build a 200 page site, as the 30dc will set out. Couple of pages should normally do it.

If you start a blog, forum, or some other user generated content site, you bill be over 1000 pages before you know it.

More pages on your site will, in most circumstances, enable you to rank for more long tail keywords, and thereby get more traffic (subject to the point about good content).

Hope this helps

[Bitcom]

I guess what I'm asking is isn't it better to have more horses in the race?

Then once you see who's winning you can raise your bet on the leading horses and drop your bets on the others.

Isn't that kind of the whole idea with Word Press Direct anyways?

[imrat]

Thats a good point Rick - I had not thought of that and I would be interested to see other people's views.

I guess I am from the school of try 1 thing before you move to the next. As a child I always wanted to do 3 or 4 sports and clubs at the same time, but my parents would never let me. "Finish this first before you start your next one..."

So I guess if you are very disciplined, you could run multiple sites for a while until you can make the decision to drop the ones that are not performing.

In a way I think the 30dc is suggesting something similar, but to do it with 1 niche and 1 site. Put it up quickly with WPD, get some links, rank, get some traffic and test the commerciality (this word should be in the dictionary if you ask me). If it does not hit min requirements, move on to the next.

Views?

[DeanRichards]

"All things being equal..."

In the real world, all things are never really equal and since we're trying to make money in the real world, this hypothetical world isn't very helpful.

For example, if you're trying to sell "dog supplies" and all you offer on your test site is three or four products because you don't want to build out the 200 pages you really need, then you're not going to get a fair test of the market.

On the other hand, it might be that your product presentation can be done well on one page and you rank #1 with just a few supporting pages, then you'd be foolish to build the site out to 100 pages just because you believe more is automatically better.

If you find some keywords of opportunity and then check the top five sites for that phrase and they all have 600 page sites, it stands to reason that you're not going to get much of a test with a three page site. However, if the competition is mostly one page sales letters, then it makes sense to build out a test site of just a few pages.

Market forces should determine how big your site needs to be; not you.

[Bitcom]

But Dean do you really want to spend the hundreds of hours it will take to "build out" your site only to realize months or years later that you really couldn't make good money with that niche/site?

You can create the 10 sites in the same amount of time, find the winners and THEN "build out" the best ones from there. Your using the 10 sites to test out those market forces first. Does that make sense?

[haitham]

I have one site that is 2 months old and has maybe 60 articles and 15 FAQ pages with over 300 pages index within google...

That site doesn't make much money ...

so i spent 2 weeks and put up another site that is having problems ranking...

i left that alone for a bit and am putting up a third site right now using hindsight from my last 2 sites.

I think 3 is the max for me at the moment because I have to build these two new sites up and that takes time. Managing 20 sites off of 20 installations of word press is a headache so there is a limit to how many i want to have (i think 3 to 5 is a good number, just like with stocks) ...

My goal is this (and this is a personal opinion not IM theory , but that's kind of what you're asking here, right)...

I'd love to have one or two very solvent sites with great traffic and revenue and will probably always have another 2 or 3 test sites going at the same time... however running multiple sites that are heavily active (think techcrunch.com as an example which takes 8 people to run it but makes 250k usd a month) would be extremely hard...

When you start out, you want to start out with low site committment to see what works (like i'm very open right now i'd be willing to put up a site just to try things)... but as you gain experience, and as certain sites begin to show their market value, you want to focus on what's working and maximize that and build it out...

so the answer is, it depends where you are in your growth and experience.

If you have a site that is gold, build it out till you can't build it out no more...If you just have an average site, then put time into putting up a second and a third site , that way you'll have something to compare which enables you (rather than us) to be able to answer yourself on the original question...

Hypothetical and abstract decisions are really bad man... in IM and in life in general...

Split testing is at the CORE of internet market because that's not a hypothetical question, that's a straight forward comparison... . And split testing means that if you feel that another site will outdo your current site, you should test and track that ... that way there is no ambiguity about it at all ...

[aikighost@gmail.com]

The single site, gets better goggle rankings due to internal linking as long as content isn't repeated.

So to surmise 1 200 page site with decent content is better as long as its in a good niche in the first place.

Now you want 20 of these 200 page sites

[DeanRichards]

Originally Posted by Bitcom

But Dean do you really want to spend the hundreds of hours it will take to "build out" your site only to realize months or years later that you really couldn't make good money with that niche/site?

You can create the 10 sites in the same amount of time, find the winners and THEN "build out" the best ones from there. Your using the 10 sites to test out those market forces first. Does that make sense?

I'm not suggesting you spend hundreds of hours on a test site.

I'm saying don't waste even one hour putting up a two page site in a 200 page market. If your test site isn't really a valid test, then any amount of time you spend on it is wasted time.

Part of market research is considering the competition. If I find keywords of opportunity but then see that the top raking sites are all 200 pages (and I can see why) then I'm either going to step up to the plate and compete at their level or I'm going to move on. I'm certainly not going to waste time on a 2 page site that automatically has no chance of competing in that market.

Sometimes less is better and sometimes less is just a half-assed waste of time.