Shotgun vs Carpet Bombing content publishing methods for new sites?

[mikiso]

Question about what Jon Dykstra refers to as the "shotgun vs carpet bombing" approach for new sites.
Would you rather write 30 articles in 3 groups of 10, with each group being a tightly linked and interrelated cluster, or 30 articles that aim for low competitiveness and some search volume, and a broad, general relation to each other? Or mix it up - a cluster of 10-15 and the rest more scattered thematically?

I ask because my first successful site was so narrowly branded (about a certain type of tool) that everything I wrote was about that tool, how to use it, subtypes of the tool, product reviews and so on - hard to go off-script. But with the new sites I'm targeting broader niches, with a lot of shoulder room to expand. But this means it's possible to go into many different topics at once without the articles overlapping thematically all that much.

What I'm planning is concentrating on small clusters - 4 or 5 articles each - to build up some more in-depth knowledge, and I suppose I'm looking for some encouragement/validation for this model. Writing it all myself, too.

 

[DanielS]

I would imagine you'd end up touching on each topic within the confines of your selected niche as you expanded the website regardless. If it were me, I'd go for the lowest competition topics at first so they could have the most time to age. Then, flesh out the website with the clusters and interlink them, etc. There will be a sandbox period regardless, but the low competition keywords could present some quick wins and validate your efforts initially.

 

[MrMedia]

Question about what Jon Dykstra refers to as the "shotgun vs carpet bombing" approach for new sites.
Would you rather write 30 articles in 3 groups of 10, with each group being a tightly linked and interrelated cluster, or 30 articles that aim for low competitiveness and some search volume, and a broad, general relation to each other? Or mix it up - a cluster of 10-15 and the rest more scattered thematically?

I ask because my first successful site was so narrowly branded (about a certain type of tool) that everything I wrote was about that tool, how to use it, subtypes of the tool, product reviews and so on - hard to go off-script. But with the new sites I'm targeting broader niches, with a lot of shoulder room to expand. But this means it's possible to go into many different topics at once without the articles overlapping thematically all that much.

What I'm planning is concentrating on small clusters - 4 or 5 articles each - to build up some more in-depth knowledge, and I suppose I'm looking for some encouragement/validation for this model. Writing it all myself, too.

Blast as much as you can in one category then move on to the next or as you put it - one shoulder at a time.

Do this until you see rankings and posts start to age and then move onto the next.

In my experience it takes a lot of posts within a category to establish topical authority. Once you have that in one category you will know as your new posts within the same category will rank pretty easily.

Then you could go to another category but unless you have maxed out I would stick with that category until done and only then move on.

 

[mikiso]

I would imagine you'd end up touching on each topic within the confines of your selected niche as you expanded the website regardless. If it were me, I'd go for the lowest competition topics at first so they could have the most time to age. Then, flesh out the website with the clusters and interlink them, etc. There will be a sandbox period regardless, but the low competition keywords could present some quick wins and validate your efforts initially.

Thanks, I think I will start with some lower comp kw articles over a few different-but-related topics and try to build around them.

Blast as much as you can in one category then move on to the next or as you put it - one shoulder at a time.

Do this until you see rankings and posts start to age and then move onto the next.

In my experience it takes a lot of posts within a category to establish topical authority. Once you have that in one category you will know as your new posts within the same category will rank pretty easily.

Then you could go to another category but unless you have maxed out I would stick with that category until done and only then move on.

Thanks man, humbled to receive advice from you. Congratulations on your achievements and may they grow greater still. I find it mentally hard to continuously produce content on one topic - it's mind-numbing and tends to burn me out sooner rather than later. But I understand the emphasis on conquering one category and then moving on to the next. It helps that I've got a nice list of 30-40 article ideas per topic for a few different topics from some old kw research. Will definitely start with those and only then expand.

 

[Taq]

I started two sites at the same time 9 months ago one was pretty broad and the other pretty niche. The niche one came out of the box faster, however, the broad one has caught up in the last month. If I was to start a broad niche again I would focus on one category at a time in the hopes to speed it up a little.

 

[bestresources]

Question about what Jon Dykstra refers to as the "shotgun vs carpet bombing" approach for new sites.
Would you rather write 30 articles in 3 groups of 10, with each group being a tightly linked and interrelated cluster, or 30 articles that aim for low competitiveness and some search volume, and a broad, general relation to each other? Or mix it up - a cluster of 10-15 and the rest more scattered thematically?

I ask because my first successful site was so narrowly branded (about a certain type of tool) that everything I wrote was about that tool, how to use it, subtypes of the tool, product reviews and so on - hard to go off-script. But with the new sites I'm targeting broader niches, with a lot of shoulder room to expand. But this means it's possible to go into many different topics at once without the articles overlapping thematically all that much.

What I'm planning is concentrating on small clusters - 4 or 5 articles each - to build up some more in-depth knowledge, and I suppose I'm looking for some encouragement/validation for this model. Writing it all myself, too.

Google has a hard time understanding your site. The slower the publishing rate and the more you move between shoulder niches, the harder job they'll have. This could potentially slow down initial ranking.

Another school of thought is that only some of the niche and sub niche / shoulder niches will perform. Therefore, by spreading your initial 30 articles across 3+ shoulder niches, it increases your chances. Then, in theory, you can triple down on the winning one.

I think it depends on whether this is your first rodeo. People are notoriously impatient. Accepting that a new site may see almost no visitors for 2 months and nothing significant for half a year is too much for many to handle. And many quit. Therefore, if someone thinks that sounds like them, then aim at a single niche and the lowest estimated volumes. Attempt to get a foothold before spreading the site thinner. Can always go into shoulder niches later. There's such a thing as trying to get too fancy when just a beginner.

 

[mikiso]

I started two sites at the same time 9 months ago one was pretty broad and the other pretty niche. The niche one came out of the box faster, however, the broad one has caught up in the last month. If I was to start a broad niche again I would focus on one category at a time in the hopes to speed it up a little.

Cheers and congrats, do you mind sharing the general word count/traffic stats for both sites?

Google has a hard time understanding your site. The slower the publishing rate and the more you move between shoulder niches, the harder job they'll have. This could potentially slow down initial ranking.

Another school of thought is that only some of the niche and sub niche / shoulder niches will perform. Therefore, by spreading your initial 30 articles across 3+ shoulder niches, it increases your chances. Then, in theory, you can triple down on the winning one.

I think it depends on whether this is your first rodeo. People are notoriously impatient. Accepting that a new site may see almost no visitors for 2 months and nothing significant for half a year is too much for many to handle. And many quit. Therefore, if someone thinks that sounds like them, then aim at a single niche and the lowest estimated volumes. Attempt to get a foothold before spreading the site thinner. Can always go into shoulder niches later. There's such a thing as trying to get too fancy when just a beginner.

This isn't my first rodeo, but my first one, I think, was a bit of beginner's luck in a not-so-competitive niche. I completely agree about spreading the site too thin, though. Will definitely avoid that. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Taq]

Cheers and congrats, do you mind sharing the general word count/traffic stats for both sites?

Around 90,000 words and 4000 visitors pm. I've just dropped a load of content onto the broad niche, as it seems it's just coming out of the sandbox. Ideally, I should have frontloaded the content, but being new, it probably would have been rubbish, and it's a huge risk to take for a newbie.

Now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing, future sites will all be frontloaded. I just started a site last week and put 20 articles on straight away, 10 are already in the top 30. I will put 100 on in the next month. I should mention it is an aged domain.

 

[Hanuman]

In my experience, websites with very narrow niches tend to rank faster since it's easy for Google to establish what the site does faster. I have one site which is pretty broad in terms of the content I create. 3.5 months on, and nearly 130 articles later, I am still receiving just 5-10 visits from search. But I am happy with this approach since I know it will come out of the sandbox at some point and at this point, I would have much larger volume of keywords to get visits from.

If you are on a budget, my advice would be

shotgun - if it's a brand new domain and you want results faster
carpet bomb - if it's an older website and/or you don't mind Google taking its time.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think this depends on a lot of other factors in the way you're approaching your publishing game.

If you're attacking an entire vertical, you have several ways of going about it, one of which applies to the micro-niche.

1) You can do a massive amount of keyword research and start picking off the lowest of the low competition keywords across the entire breadth of the vertical. I'm doing this on my newest project and it's working out great. You don't necessarily need topical authority to win keywords with very low competition. This lets you cast many nets and allows you to get in a lot of data early on to find out what Google may favor you for later, where you can double down for faster ROI.

2) You can choose one category (one sub-niche in the vertical) and attack it bottom-to-top or top-to-bottom. The direction doesn't matter if you can publish fast enough but if you're slow then bottom-to-top (in terms of competition) is better for faster ROI. Google may not favor you for this topic, but you'll eventually create topical authority regardless.

Two things that are critical no matter which approach you take is internal linking and external linking. If page rank isn't flowing through contextual links, you're not just leaving some money on the table, you're probably leaving all of it and wondering why the guys on the forum are making money and you're not.

And of course, it should be stated that you should be prepared to work as hard as you can for a solid year before you start getting serious traction. If you give up in this time period, that's on you. This is the worst part about SEO and a very effective barrier to entry.