Starting From Scratch & Creating 10-20 small sites = Mistake in 2017?

GrindingTo10K

GrindingTo10K

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Basically, I have a fair bit of SEO knowledge already, but I have been out of the affiliate site game for a few years due to getting killed by penguin/panda a few years ago and getting burnt-out. Now, I am starting again and I want to make over 10k per month from Amazon affiliate sites (targeting USA). I hope to achieve this goal within 1-1.5 years.

Anyway, my question is about the path I have decided (so far) to go down. I was going to make 10-20 smaller sites with only 20-30 pages each and rank them for review/best related keywords. However, I see a lot of big SEO guys are focusing on one domain, and doing silos.

Should I focus on 1 broad niche site (like sports equipment) and then split the site into silos (tennis racquets, golf clubs etc) or push on this my 10-20 niche sites plan?
 
I would lose interest in 20-30 sites. I wouldn't develop a connection or care about any one of them. They are just a means to an end (money). These days I want a bigger connection with what I am working on, one big site you love might be the way to go.

My 2 cents.
 
The reason for one site over 30 is that you can't possibly treat 30 well as a one-man or small team operation. That leads you back to the old-school EMD domains, MFA content, Spam links. It's a recipe for failure in 2017.

If you pour all of your resources into one project it compounds.

It's a synergy kind of thing, where 1 * 30 crap sites = the power of 1 crap site 30 times.

1 authority site with the compounding results of the effort of 30 sites = the power of 100 crap sites. It's all about one snowball rolling down hill and growing in size and momentum.
 
I did the micro-site thing for a while, EMD amazon affiliate (still proud of it, and its still crushing actually), lots of EMD local services stuff. I still do small local services sites for rank-n-rent because I like to diversify, but focusing my efforts and money now on larger authority sites.

Ryuzaki is right, you get compounding benefits with larger domains. Each new article will benefit from link building you did on all the other articles, age of the domain, relevance of the domain/etc. With 30 microsites you lose that edge, which is a big edge especially with the hassle and costs of link building.

Finally, theres no reason you can't launch 30 sites and let them cook while you focus on 1 or 2 larger ones. Time is a pretty big factor nowadays so even if you launch a new domain with a few pieces of content you will get the age factor out of the way if you decided to focus on it later. And if you discard it, so what, its nominals costs for domain registrations and content.

To add to that, I actually like to launch a new local site at least once a month, just due to the age factor and the cookie cutter nature of local service provider websites. It's easy enough to do and whenever I feel like ranking a new rank-n-rent I can pick one from the pile and go with it.
 
I agree with @MichaelHayes

Build out something, let the other simmer. You can do both, but that doesn't mean you have to go 100% on both.

Build out 1 and set the other 30 up over time and throw a couple of articles on each while building up the big one.
 
Thanks guys. I am going to focus on one authority site with an aged domain from TB Solutions and then for each keyword I will spend $10 for a niche domain and write 3 or 4 pages for it.

Does the clock start for ageing a domain when the Wordpress installation is indexed in Google (generic installation with the "hello world" page) or do I need to send some links to it etc? Which steps should I take specifically for the niche sites to age them?
 
Instead of doing 30 sites why not do a smaller batch of 3-5 sites so you can concentrate your efforts on them better?
 
I think everyone knows my stances on "multiple projects". Singular focus on a single project is exponentially better than spreading yourself thin on weak projects.

The days of easy rankings are over. You are using a playbook from 2008.

People win when they concentrate on a single project. Zuckerberg concentrated on only Facebook, not twelve other "ideas". Bill Gates concentrated on Microsoft and did all he can to make that a success. Elon Musk concentrated on Paypal and won exponentially. All those people slept in their offices in the early days. They believed in what they were going after.

When I see people saying "I'm going to divide my time up between 12 or 30 projects" it means they don't believe in anything they are going after. How can you possibly defeat 12-30 opponents when each one of those opponents are putting 100% of their time and effort in their single business?

When Bill Gates first met Warren Buffett, their host at dinner, Gates’ mother, asked everyone around the table to identify what they believed was the single most important factor in their success through life. Gates and Buffett gave the same one-word answer: "Focus."​
 
GrindingTo10K said:
I am targeting low search keywords like "... reviews" or "best ..." keywords and product/model numbers. I could not make a living off of one niche like juicer reviews etc.
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"Low search volume" keywords in multiple niches... you aren't going to get far just concentrating on SEO with this strategy. You are still using a 2009 playbook. There is a year waiting period for new websites without powerful resources (See The Year One Organic Boost - @Ryuzaki calls it a ranking boost but in reality it's a 1 year filter to stop spammers/SEOs from rising too high too fast) and as Matt Cutts was quoted as saying on video, "If you want to stop spam, the most straight forward way to do it is to deny people money because they care about the money and that should be their end goal. But if you really want to stop spam, it is a little bit mean, but what you want to do, is sort of break their spirits. There are lots of Google algorithms specifically designed to frustrate spammers. Some of the things we do is give people a hint their site will drop and then a week or two later, their site actually does drop. So they get a little bit more frustrated. So hopefully, and we’ve seen this happen, people step away from the dark side and say, you know what, that was so much pain and anguish and frustration, let’s just stay on the high road from now on" (Sauce: Google's Matt Cutts: Our Algorithms Try To Break Black Hat SEOs Spirits)

In that environment, where Google has designed their algorithms to break people's spirit, you want to compete in and solely concentrate on SEO? You don't have to be doing Black Hat SEO - but you are still doing SEO and going up against filters and algorithms designed to stop websites from rising too high too fast. You are playing in that environment. Do you really want to wait a year+ to get significant results? I can't wait a year for a project to get profitable.

You should check out the Digital Strategy Crash Course and more specifically the Traffic Leaking thread. The whole internet can be a traffic source if you really want to win at this.
 
I certainly see the point you are making, but I have a background in SEO, I just need to catch up with what has been happening in the last few years. :cool:

I have a guy from BHW who gives me low/medium competition Amazon related keywords e.g. juicer reviews/best juicer. So, combined with some PBN links and good content I think I will be ok.

BUT I have decided to focus on one site and buy an aged domain from TB Solutions to try and skip the 1 year sandbox/spammer penalty. One aged domain with some Forbes/Huff Post links and easy/medium keywords will get me to a few K per month I am sure.
 
GrindingTo10K said:
Thanks guys. I am going to focus on one authority site with an aged domain from TB Solutions and then for each keyword I will spend $10 for a niche domain and write 3 or 4 pages for it.

Does the clock start for ageing a domain when the Wordpress installation is indexed in Google (generic installation with the "hello world" page) or do I need to send some links to it etc? Which steps should I take specifically for the niche sites to age them?
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I've heard it say that just being registered, even with a parking page, is good enough for domain age. That being said, it seems like an easy leak for G to fix, so I'd do a bit of content and something simple/easy like directories submissions or a press release, then let it start baking.
 
CCarter said:
You should check out the Digital Strategy Crash Course and more specifically the Traffic Leaking thread. The whole internet can be a traffic source if you really want to win at this.
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Holistically theres no arguing this. Personally I'm bias towards SEO because I've yet to actually find a niche I care enough about to truly market towards. I'm working on it, but while SEO works, I might as well take advantage of it.

James Gregory said once to me "Less PBNs, More Money Sites". Goes opposite to what your point is, and ultimately we might grow up and realize we should think bigger than making $500/month on rank n rents or micro affiliate sites (he's now rolling in the gambling niche, but was able to quit his job with microsites), but doing multiple things is better than being stuck in analysis paralysis. Just do it, worst that could happen, you learn.
 
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