Small sites and big sites both have drawbacks for search traffic.
It’s been a rough couple months for web publishers with massive content libraries.
Google’s “Panda” update put a huge dent in these sites’ traffic metrics. With lost traffic comes lost ad revenue. With that layoffs will follow.
And it’s not just the “evil content farms” that got hit. I’ve spoken to many brand name publishers with solid, well-sourced, professionally-written articles that have been dinged (albeit not as hard).
So what does this mean for publishers that want stability in the future?
They should take the Goldilocks approach: not too small…not too large…just right.
Let’s start with too small. A lot of domainers fall into this category. They develop minisites with 5-10 pages of content. They have to do SEO work for each and every one of these sites. The work required to get some inbound links doesn’t justify the amount of traffic possible on the small sites.
These sites are too small.
Then there’s the mega content hub, like Demand Media’s eHow. These span hundreds of thousands of pages (I think that’s the number. I tried Googling “how many pages does eHow have?”. There was no eHow article about it.) Mega hubs like this attract a lot of search engine juice and newly published articles get indexed with authority quickly.
Or at least they did.
The problem is they span such a large topic base that they start to flood the search engines. Any bad content on the hub gets ridiculed. People start to hate the site. Then the uproar becomes big enough that people complain to Google. Google creates a tool for people to block sites, and then that blocking data is used in future algorithm changes. Poof.
These sites are too big.
So what sites are just right? That’s a tough question. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, this is a case where you need to try out all three sizes to find the one that’s just right.
Rob Sequin says
I have 40 developed websites in my Caribbean country network and many rank high for the appropriate keyword in Google.
1. The best SEO is good, original, recurring content.
2. Make someone else want to link to your site. If you are not building a site that other people won’t link to, what’s the sense?
3. Link to other sites in your Network IF the sites are related. Don’t over link.
4. Develop as though a Google search engine rep was looking over your shoulder. I think many sites are reviewed by humans at Google and not just Googlebot. Sites are then flagged or rated for quality.
5. I think websites are like restaurants, the good ones don’t have to advertise. People find them and tell others how good the website/restaurant is.
6. Park/minisite domains in order to gauge traffic then develop the ones with traffic. The days of park and forget it are over.
7. Develop in an area that you know and/or like.
8. Develop in order to bring in direct advertisers. Make a site you will be proud to pitch over the phone to end users who will like the domain and website you built.
9. Make long term development plans for content, design AND direct advertisers.
10. Hmmm. Not sure how I came up with nine so far but I’ll take a shot at #10 I guess… Focus on content, content, content OR offer a unique product or service.
So, I like to think this development strategy is “just right” 🙂