Authority vs. Niche Site

turtle

turtle

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I've already discussed this in Private, but I thought I would post this here since it might be good to get some more opinions.

During some research in a few niches I found that all the results (German SERP's) had "mini-sites" with either a PMD or EMD. They all revolve around one topic but they aren't thin-affiliate sites, though. So it seems like google.de still values those type of sites.
My concern is if I should rather focus on creating one authority site with a brand new domain or building out several sites that all sit on aged EMD's/PMD's? Where do you see the upsides with an authority or several niche sites?
 
I don't think you should concentrate on a single traffic source, Google, for your business. SEO is one tool in the toolbox, there are tons of ways to get other websites to generate you streams of targeted traffic. If you live in a box, you'll never know how much freedom you truly have until you step out of the box.

I would build an authority website for a number of reasons. First if there are truly only EMD or PMDs ranking that means in a couple of years the Google.de is going to catch up to Google.com's current ranking theories. So if you can using Google.com's future you can see that in the near future Authority sites are going to rank in Google.de - it can't stay the EMD and PMD route forever. So if you simple step back and think ahead, by creating the authority site NOW you'll be cementing your future in the top positions for your niche.

2nd reason - with an authority site you can traffic leak, create a brand behind your website and generate traffic better from multiple angles you haven't even thought about. Imagine sponsoring a dozen Instagram stars or youtube celebrities to generate traffic. How will it look with a proper brand versus an EMD/PMD? It'll look better with a proper brand.

3rd - the second your site launches, start growing your mailing list along with it. Meaning capturing as much of the audience in a mailing list that you control, so IF Google, Youtube, Reddit, or someone that you were relying solely on for traffic cuts you off, you will still be able to weather the storm cause you've got a loyal mailing list that you constantly communicate with.

Internet Marketing is about diversity and controlling your destination. Do NOT allow Google, youtube, Aweber, Reddit, Facebook, or some OTHER website to control YOUR destiny. Make sure you are in control, and that means having multiple sources of traffic, networking and guest-posting within your industry for traffic and awareness, and growing your own mailing list which you can use to grow your brand, your awareness, and exchange posts with other mailing lists to cross-pollinate the membership.

Internet Marketing is about "MARKETING". Marketing is about proactively getting in front of your audience, SEO is a waiting game, don't simply do SEO and "hope" for the best. That's lazy and if the past is an indicator of the future, look at the past SEOs who just concentrated on 1 method, SEO? Where are they now?
 
If I should go with the authority site, what would be the best way to structure the site?
Those niche sites from my competitors easily have 15-20k words, which I would also be able to pump out. Setting up the authority site I doubt it would be smart to fill one blog post with 20k words. Splitting it up into parts would be difficult due to the nature of the content. Think of it like a "car review". A visitor landing on my page/blog post would like to read the whole review on this page. Jumping to another blog post to read the fuel consumption wouldn't really be user-friendly imo.
Would appreciate any live example or idea to solve this problem.
 
You can always use the main article that acts as the top of the silo that targets the main term as a sort of Table of Contents that summarizes each sub-article in a paragraph or two. It links to all of them and they all link back. This allows you to rank them all together in one group since you are cycling the page rank juice around.

Car Review
Today we are discussing a review of this specific car. Blah Blah... It is quite the complex matter so we've kept it as short as possible to save you time. If you find a section of this article where you need a deeper exploration, we've provided a link to our complete, fully-detailed posts on that sub-topic.

The Braking System
Blah Blah summary of the main points like a thesis statement in a research article. A paragraph or two.
  • Learn More: All About the Braking System of the Nissan 370z

Interior Layout
It includes a cassette player, automatic locks and windows, microfiber cloth on the seats...
  • Learn More: Sport & Luxury - The 370z Interior



That's how I'd play that out. I also wouldn't be afraid to have one giant post with internal anchor links to jump to each section at the top, with no summaries. And STILL rewrite each section as their own posts. It depends on how you're monetizing it really. You don't want to cater to the bots if it will hurt user experience. But you can certainly have a monster post that is completely useable with these internal anchors and ^back-to-table-of-contents style links.
 
"But you can certainly have a monster post that is completely useable with these internal anchors and ^back-to-table-of-contents style links."

This plus slipping in 5-10 super relevant super authority (not Wikipedia, that shark been jumped) outbound links interspersed with my other internal linking has been producing massive gains for me.

It's almost like Google likes sites that don't deadend their crawlers or something. :wink:
 
In the past I've read a lot of "guides" suggesting that the main target keyword should be in the first 100 words of your article. Am I right thinking that this isn't that important anymore? I mean there are tons of sites that have articles with +10k words in the style that we mentioned above. Obviously those pages want to rank for multiple different keywords but can't all have them in the first paragraph.
 
turtle said:
In the past I've read a lot of "guides" suggesting that the main target keyword should be in the first 100 words of your article. Am I right thinking that this isn't that important anymore? I mean there are tons of sites that have articles with +10k words in the style that we mentioned above. Obviously those pages want to rank for multiple different keywords but can't all have them in the first paragraph.
Click to expand...

They likely have a primary keyword in mind and get it in the beginning of the article. It's not mandatory to do that to rank, however.
 
turtle said:
During some research in a few niches I found that all the results (German SERP's) had "mini-sites" with either a PMD or EMD. They all revolve around one topic but they aren't thin-affiliate sites, though.
Click to expand...

You're certainly referring to those Amazon niche sites aiming for the "<product category> test" keywords, the equivalent to "<product category> reviews" keywords in English.

Even though some of the sites contain quite a lot of content, I'd still consider them thin affiliate sites. After all their main goal is simply to push some Amazon sales.

Also I'd avoid to include the word "test" in the domain name. It just looks so spammy. You're better of with a EMD of the product name and a new TLD.
 
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