The following is an EPIC guest post and marketing truth bomb from Clint Lenard of Affiliit.com.
It’s about whether you should focus on building one large authority website or multiple niche websites. I promise you’ll learn more from this one article than anything you’ve read on Warrior Forum or Digital Point…
One Authority Site or Niche Mini Sites?
Everyone will work at their own pace, whether they believe it’s right or wrong. Remember, this isn’t a race. You’re simply building a long-term Business, so take the proper time.
Let’s go ahead and pretend we’re starting from scratch, so that I can help you (and maybe others) get a better idea of what building 100 sites should be like.
I also want to stress a point, too… there is no right or wrong way of building 100 sites vs. 1 Authority site, but I do believe 100 sites will be the best way to go (in theory and in practice, but follow along) because you’re able to do what Marketers practice and preach: Testing.
For instance, what if you build one Authority site and you spend hours and hours planning and building every single day, as well as paying for help, articles, etc. and then… it all tanked…
Maybe someone hacked your site and you didn’t have a backup? Maybe you just put too much effort into a site that really didn’t have a good audience?
This is where I thought about the “Lean Affiliate Marketing” approach, much like Lean Manufacturing, Lean Startup, etc. You build something small, try to make money quick and gradually improve after doing small tests. But you’re also building other sites in a similar fashion.
Here’s an idea: You build 10 sites (small) that have 5 articles each and they’re all in similar niches, but not the same. Maybe they’re: Fat Loss, Body Building, Gaining Weight for Skinny Guys, etc, etc — all somewhat similar, but not really the same niche. Each site is doing the following:
- They have decent content
- They’re building Lists
- They’re promoting a product
Now let’s compare that to one giant site about Fat Loss.
- The competition is fierce, but the amount of content may help.
- You’re spending a lot of time and energy into one site and you’re not sure if you will be successful
- You’ve got 50 articles on this one site vs. 5 articles spread out across 10 similar, but much smaller sites
What happens in these scenarios? Nobody really knows… but we can pretty much assume that out of 10 smaller sites – you’ll have a bit more luck. And guess what? You can build those “luckier” sites up from there.
Think of this like fishing…
You go to a spot where everybody says “Yeah, Joe over there caught a 50 lb Striper just this morning!” … so you figure “If I spend the next 5-6 hours out there, I’m sure I’ll catch something.”
Now let’s say you went fishing in 10 different spots at the same time? Yeah, that sounds impossible, but not if you put out a trot line at 9 spots and fish in another (for those not familiar with a trot line: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotline)
I can assure you that you will have more chances with 9 trot lines + your own fishing pole.
So why not try to build a few sites a week and go from there? In 5 weeks you’ll have 10 sites and each one gives you a little bit more chance to find that “luck”
Just do a few things:
1. Make sure you have Analytics on each site, preferably with GetClicky.com and not Google Analytics. Use this information to see how the traffic is going.
2. Analyze your competition. Yes, you can do this afterwards, IMO. These are small niche sites, so don’t be too worried. You can build them up later and compete with any site not named Google and Facebook. At this point – you can probably buy Yahoo in a few months and use it as your own personal Private Blog Network.
3. Learn about what’s going on, figure out which site is making the most money and spend a bit more time on that/those site(s) so that you can capitalize on the growth.
Clint is the owner of Affiliit and he posts high-quality, real world content like this all the time so if your online business is failing, check out his internet marketing training website.
Jeff