How Many Domains or Sites Should You Have?
This is a question which I occasionally get asked by
subscribers. How many domains or sites should I have?
Of course, there are many ways to answer this question.
Around 10 years ago, when I first started online,
my answer would have been one site – which is enough
for anyone. However, after all I have done and
experienced since that time – my answer would now be:
as many as you can afford!
I started with my main general site dealing with the
topic of Online Marketing and Marketing Tools, but 3 or
4 years in, I started building other closely related
sites which were highly focused on just one topic or
niche market.
Most of these are what is commonly referred to as
“Mini-sites” – consisting of only 5 or 6 pages.
Although some can have more pages… these are the
kinds of sites you set-up and forget about them, more
or less.
I usually promote them once or twice a year with
an article or a relevant press release. But these
sites run themselves and if you build them the right
way – they can earn you revenue for years to come.
Keep Your Costs Low
I try to keep my overall yearly costs for a site
under $50 – I know webmasters who build sites for
a fraction of that price, but I like having a reliable
hosting that I can trust. Try Yahoo or GoDaddy.
The greatest benefit from having numerous sites, you’re
not putting all your “resources and hopes” into just
one basket. This was really brought home to me this
year by Google’s endless Panda Updates, which are
still ongoing and relentless.
A few of my sites lost traffic, while others gained
traffic. If I only had the one site – Panda would have
been a problem, mainly because it targeted duplicate
content including articles and all those valuable
backlinks. Article marketing has been one of my most
useful ways to get rankings and traffic,
Panda put a big dent in that whole process.
Build Exact Keyword Domains
What I really noticed about the Panda Updates and Google’s
Algorithm changes this past year… my exact keyword
domain sites rose or kept their rankings in Google.
This is extremely important for the following reason:
purchasing an exact keyword domain and building a small
site around this main keyword will usually get you the top
spot in Google for that keyword. If you have the domain
“www.bluewidgets.com” – with a little bit of proper SEO
and promotion – you will get top listings for the keyword
“bluewidgets” in Google.
I also consider keyword enhancers in the domain name
such as “buy” “buy online” “cheap” “best”… these added
words will usually increase your conversion rates… you
want visitors who are ready to buy your product or at
least seriously considering buying your product.
I try to find a lucrative keyword which has at least
5,000 to 20,000 searches a month. If you can buy that
exact keyword domain and build a mini-site around it,
chances are very good at the moment, that you will get
listed in the top 5 spots in Google for that keyword,
if not the top spot.
How do you know a keyword will be or is profitable?
One very simple thing I do is simply use Google Keyword
Tool to find the number of monthly searches and related
keywords, noting the level of competition for those
keywords. Next, I simply do a search in Google for a
chosen keyword, are there at least 10 sites/companies
advertising on the search results page? If people are
advertising this keyword is probably profitable and
making them money.
I also study the top 10 sites ranking for this keyword
phrase – can I compete with them? Do any have the
exact keyword phrase in their domain? How good are
the sites… and so on.
Even with low traffic numbers, you can still make a
profit because this is free targeted traffic from Google.
I have long learned that you should never underestimate
the very targeted visitors you get from Google. People
trust Google and once you get those top rankings,
your marketing job is already 90% done for you.
Use Social Bookmarks
Don’t forget to use the “social bookmark” buttons such
as ShareThis or AddThis… on all your content. Google
is paying much more attention to these social numbers,
including, of course, its own Google+ numbers.
Now, many of these sites don’t get a lot of traffic,
they aren’t really designed to get a lot of traffic…
these are niche sites created to get free targeted
keyword traffic from the search engines, especially
Google. But if you’re targeting the right visitors, you
don’t need much traffic to make these sites profitable.
…
SiteBuildIt is having their annual “Buy One – Get One Free”
and the purchase link is now live. NO! I would not recommend
you use SBI for building “mini-sites” – it is way too expensive
for that purpose.
But if you’re new to this online stuff – SBI is great for
your first main site because it will take you step-by-step
through building your online site.
Kind Regards,
Titus Hoskins
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