Blog, Authority, Hub, Mininet... Which Type of Site to Build?


Question: I'm hearing a lot about authority sites. How are they any different than a regular site? I'm still thinking and wondering which way to go. I have my niche and a few affiliate programs that I want to promote, but which type of site to build?

Answer: There are many methods and types of sites. A few of which are microsites, minisites, niche article sites, mininets, hubs, directories, authorities and blogs. They all have their application.

If you follow the advice of someone like Michael Cheney, you can do very well with AdSense using 10 or less authority sites. He keeps adding articles on a regular basis. The site slowly continues to grow. It's seen as an authority because it has lots of information on a central theme.

Cheney's AdSense Videos ==> http://www.cdzn.com/av

If you follow the advice of Colin McDougall, he too uses authority sites that have articles. The content continues to build over time. The major difference, is that Colin chooses affiliate revenue instead of AdSense, and needs only one or two sites, to achieve the same amount of revenue as 10 AdSense sites.

Colin McDougall's VEO System ==> http://www.cdzn.com/veo

Because the large sites have lots of information on a particular topic, people naturally start linking to the site. The more people link, the more link popularity and PageRank the site gets.

Thanks to the incoming links and a lot of content, the site gradually starts climbing in the search results. The higher it goes, the more people find it and start linking to it.

Finally the site gets parked in the top five and it's almost impossible to usurp their coveted position. It's a long, time consuming - three to six month - road and it's very profitable, but I certainly wouldn't want to do that on every domain name that I own.

For some domain names, I don't give a rats axe about the topic and don't care to learn. I'll use smArticle and a template to set up a funky looking, 10 page article site and leave it be. I'll take the type in traffic and the 50 dollars or so the parked domain makes per month.

smArticle Composer ==> http://www.cdzn.com/ace

smArticle Templates ==> http://www.cdzn.com/act

At the other end of the spectrum, I have large content-rich sites that I add to almost daily. These are my authority sites that I've been talking about for many years. (Since 1997 when I built the Cellular Accessory empire, for those of you keeping score at home. ;-)

If you'd like to go the Authority Site route, set up a top-level category, theme, or topic for your site. (Just go to Yahoo if you want structural intelligence.)

Choose a category like... apparel, automotive, beauty, computers, education, electronics, health, garden, jewelry, musical instruments, software, sports, tools, toys, games, or something else that you're interested in. Once you have your topic, you can start organizing the navigation and linking structure for your site.

If you choose something like health and fitness, that opens up subcategories, subdomains, or directories, dealing with vitamins, treadmills, water, diet... you get the idea.

Start taking articles from your Keyword Avalanche (or Sold Out Article Underground) collection and modify them. Post an article almost every day. Announce the article to blogs or other web properties you own, or have access to. Announce the site to a few new directories per month.

Keyword Avalanche Articles ==> http://www.cdzn.com/ka

High Rank Directory List ==> http://www.cdzn.com/hrd

Pretty soon, at the end of six months, you'll have a monster sized site, all on the same topic. And that my friend, is an authority site, plain and simple. Are they in favor right now? Sure... because they've always been.

Large Authority sites with good saturation - meaning lots of pages in the index - have always been a Google favorite. Yahoo and MSN like them too. So did Alta Vista, Excite, Fast and Hotbot, when they were around.

My advice would be to do whatever makes sense for any particular market or domain name. If it's smarter and faster to put up a 10 page article site on a domain that gets type-in traffic, I say go for it.

If it makes sense to put up a four site Butterfly, for different makes and model numbers of camping stoves.... go for it. If you think a nine site Matrix - for affiliate revenue from pet supplies - would do the trick... do it!

If you have something to say almost every day, and you want the web pages made for you at the click of a button, try your hand at blogging. Make a note to start tomorrow.

If you like doing research, finding links to other web sites, and reviewing them, consider setting up a hub or portal. You could be the directory that everyone turns to in your niche.

If you have a topic that you're passionate about, and can sustain interest in the project for years... then set up an authority site. Go for it. Start organizing the layout, then slowly add your content.

So as you can see, there are many types of sites, and they all have different applications. My bottom line says... do whatever makes sense to you, for that particular web property, and your level of interest for it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm busy setting up a whole whack of 10 page smArticle sites on domain names that I'm trying to sell. (I may as well collect AdSense revenue from them in the mean time.)

After that, I'm going to add a couple of articles to my fitness site... what about you? What are you going to do today? Are you going to start a mininet, post to your blog, add links to your hub, or start designing your authority site?

So long as its taking action, instead of just thinking about it, you're on the right path!

Posted: Fri - August 18, 2006 at 08:22 AM          





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