Pre-Heating the Google Oven

[voLdie]

I assume this works fairly well but wanted to see If anyone deploys this strategy.

If I spread myself too thin across several authority sites I find the returns diminishing and would rather go all out on one site.

Would it make sense to launch i.e. 10 websites that include the following:

• 5 - 10 Optimized Posts
• Quality Design / Speed Optimized
• Author Profiles that are Detailed and Fitting for the Niche
• A chunk of Local Citations / Social Profiles
• Maybe Add 1 Post per Month Just to Show That It Is Alive While Not Distracting From the Main Project

Then let them sit ready for me to go hard on once I scale my content team/standard operating procedures or flip my current main project?

This would then allow me to have an oven pre-heated with sites more trusted and ready to rank in the eyes of Google.

Any opinions?

 

[Ryuzaki]

As I was reading your post, the first thing that came into my mind was "I'd at least publish to them once a month or so to keep Google interested and crawling." And then I came across that bullet point.

I tried 50 sites in the past, back in the micro-niche days, didn't go so well once I hit the link-building stage. The only option to make any dent then was spam. You can guess how well that went ultimately when Penguin rolled around.

If I was going to do this today, I'd probably do less than 10 sites unless I just had the perfect niches in mind, etc. I'd drop it down to 5 and then increase the amount of content I push out on each. I'd take 5-10 posts up to 30-50. That's enough that if they're going to sit, they can at least earn some revenue eventually and pay their keep. And you have a chance of building some topical authority. Anyone can build out a 5-10 page site, you know. Spammers are less likely to go up to 30-50. Could be some trust threshold in there (maybe, who knows). I think that number will give you better real world data, too, once you turn to them.

But it'll be real hard to take 10 sites seriously, even if you can treat them seriously. The only people I know of that manage to have 10+ actual, real deal sites and not "shitters" they call sites are media empires that have offices and lots of employees. The amount of moving parts are going to get really high. I think you could control for that and get it done.

Ultimately though not all 10 will be worth pursuing. If you have one or two obvious winners it'll make more sense to pour 95% of your resources into those and keep the other ones on the "post per month" back burner, and ultimately just sell them off if they start doing okay.

I knew a guy that would do this with batches of 5 sites. One would be selected after they were all given time to mature, and the four others would be sold for whatever they (this was a team, even at this level) could get for them. Rinse and repeat, always having another batch of 5 baking in the oven for decision time after the big one got flipped.

 

[DevMystic]

@Ryuzaki What do you reckon the most time-heavy process would be when handling more than 3 sites?

 

[Ryuzaki]

@Ryuzaki What do you reckon the most time-heavy process would be when handling more than 3 sites?

All of them if you don't, and do, get ahead of yourself. But getting ahead of yourself is going to doom the whole project. My answer is basically the same answer to "what does it take to reach scale?"

Back in the day when I built 50 sites, I built them out with pre-made themes, wrote all the content until each site was "finished" and then realized that there was no way in hell, nor did I have the cash, to do real link building for all of them. It was either quit or plow forward with spam, which I did and earned good money, and then lost most of the sites. I think that's the typical hurdle that is always moving further away from you, until you have a fully operational business.

What I mean is that, whether you're doing this for 1 or 10 or 50 sites, you're going to begin by doing it yourself. Then you have to identify the most troublesome part and document, train, and outsource it. Rinse and repeat for every part.

So let's say you realize the best thing you could do at first is stop writing and pay writers. Either train them or pay an agency. That's the first and biggest hurdle out of the way (besides having the money to do it).

Then you realize sourcing, editing, and adding images is your next biggest time sink and headache. You document, train, and outsource that. Eventually you need two or three people doing this.

Then you realize you're spending all of your time receiving content and formatting it. So you offload that.

Now you're spending all your time doing keyword research. You probably shouldn't let go of this part. You shouldn't let go of quality control either, checking the work and not being lazy about it. I wrote a script to help with this part since my posts all have the same main elements. Leverage people and computers to do work for you.

Time to get into the trenches building links, train someone, or buy links.

So now you think you're free and that all parts of the work flow are taken care of for the most part. But you're spending all your time fielding questions, checking work, sending payments, organizing workflows...

You need a manager or even two, who will be paid a higher amount to do this and send you weekly reports to make sure they aren't cheating you. I've seen these types cheat people more than any other, whether that's editors for content writing, people prospecting for guest posts or handling other link stuff, developers charging for hours and not doing anything at all, etc. So you can never stop checking their work.

Now you have a business. You can hire a CEO and fully step away if you want.

But my point is every single stage in the SEO game (and I spoke from a focus on publishing) is the most time-heavy part. Our job is to work our way out of that by documenting, training, and hiring/automating. Then we identify the next troublesome part and repeat the process. Eventually you have a well-oiled machine that runs itself without your involvement.

Like @voLdie indicated, there's little point in going too far with many sites until you start sewing up the holes in the process, or you'll quickly become overwhelmed and become the bottleneck in your business.

I mentioned in my AMA thread that scaling isn't just "how much can I get done" because that ends up meaning you have a spurt of work and then burn out. True scaling requires a conveyer belt with people standing alongside it, all managing to do their parts without slowing down the speed at which the work-item moves down the belt and into the "completed" basket.

It's a pendulum that has to swing back and forth with optimization so that all parts of the workflow are keeping up with each other. It's better to get the entire workflow running first with 5 posts a week or whatever before you start trying to do 100 posts a week. Because if you put the cart ahead of the horse, you'll see how quickly it all breaks down when all the weak points are exposed. Patience is a huge virtue when it comes to building something like this out, I think. And of course, a willingness to let go of control.

 

[voLdie]

@Ryuzaki What do you reckon the most time-heavy process would be when handling more than 3 sites?

I know for me it's content. Even when outsourcing unless you have the cash for editing, design, and formatting of posts it can become a pain in the ass to context switch between websites.

There is also the research and niche awareness that is now split 33.3% each way. Hiring and firing writers until you have the ones with the right knowledge.

Also, personally, I have the fear that by dividing my attention I'll have 3 pretty good sites vs having one that I can push to a 7 figure acquisition.

This is all my idea behind having sites "preheating" so down the road post-acquisition I don't have a big waiting period/time to get traffic organically.

EDIT:

@Ryuzaki is obviously spot on here. I have sold probably 7 sites at this point and mostly worked as a crackhead using pure will to drive them to profitability. I believed documentation/training /corporate BS was not part of this industry.

Very wrong.

As I get older and mature I am seeing and now slowly building the "ship" @Ryuzaki is talking about. Documenting the shit out of everything and building training, organization, and a KBs in Notion.

Your advice is gold dude, thanks!