Network of sites or one large one?

themike537 · #1 11-20-2006, 07:47 PM

Hey,

My partner and I have decided to become serious about poker affiliating, and internet marketing in general. I have a question that I'd like your thoughts on. It would greatly help us decide the direction we want to go in...

We already operate 3 poker affiliate sites, but may be selling up to 2 of them. We will be updating and upgrading our first site with daily content. Our first site focuses on a small/medium size niche of the poker market.

My question is, for expansion, would you add additional sections/content to the original site, or just create keyword rich domains for additional niches and build a network of sites linking together?

Any thoughts you have on this would be greatly appreciated...

DealerDan · #2 11-20-2006, 10:29 PM

Have to be brief here, but basically I had one big site, didn't work out well for conversions, I switched to a network of sites(can see some at http://www.dealerdangaming.com) and it's increased things radically. There's so many advantages to running a variety of different sites I find, as you can focus on smaller niches etc. Plus, one site may work and one site may not, so it's a case of not putting all eggs in one basket.

If you wish to do just the one site, do it like Dominique(from CAP) who runs http://www.gamesandcasino.com/

Hope this helps.

RounderStaked · #3 11-21-2006, 11:38 AM

I would suggest to first create smaller sections on your main site for the areas you wish to expand with the "broad strokes" so to speak and the most important info, then once your new site for that category is ready for launch you can link out to it, ie..for a complete guide visit....

themike537 · #4 11-21-2006, 11:55 AM

Ok, well our first site is really targeted towards its niche, and has it pretty much dominated, so I'm leaning towards setting up a network of similar size sites.

Justin · #5 11-21-2006, 02:09 PM

I think for safety reasons (Google nuke), having 10 small sites that make the same amount of money as one big site is the way to go. However it also depends on how big your one big site is gonna be....

If your one big site is an awesome idea and it's gonna dominate and be the next PokerListings, PocketFives, PokerNews etc.... then I think I would have to go with the big site.

themike537 · #6 11-21-2006, 02:13 PM

No, the big site wouldn't be at that level. It'd provide strategy and news, but with a two man staff we'd never get to that level.

RounderStaked · #7 11-21-2006, 02:32 PM

is my suggestion potentially detrimental to the overall site for SERP and SEO in general?

For instance my poker site having an online casinos section or sportsbooks, since those inner pages have unrelated keywords and are optimized entirely different from the rest of the site. I have had a fair amount of success and interest from my traffic doing this, but am I lowering the overall SEO value of my site?