One site or many?

[webjourneyman]

There are so many conflicting advice given on how to succeed as a "webpreneur", one advice I hear a lot is to diversify and create multiple income streams. How does that measure against focusing on one thing at a time and giving one website all the attention it needs?
I mean if I could choose between starting multiple mediocre sites vs. one great site, which one is better?
All advice appreciated.

[guitaristinus]

Often the "one great site" doesn't make much money. Then you would have to make another. Then, maybe, another.

I've built a couple of great sites that are finished. So I've thought of other great sites to make. Or another quickie. Sometimes I make a great quickie site.

Sometimes the crappy site makes more money than the great one.

As far diversifying to have a reliable income, I haven't worried about that and ended up with a bunch of sites anyway.

[Junanagoh]

I am getting close to finishing my first site (well look wise anyway, still want to put a mass of content on it but thats coming with time).

I have had tons of ideas for new sites but I run into a little problem. A budget... I wish I had the money to make all of the sites going around in my head!

[mack]

There are definatly two main ruits to follow. Build one site and put all your effort into it, or build many and spread your time between them.

I think the key is to work on one site, until it is finisged, then perhaps move on. If you try to acheive to much in a short time span, then you are diluting your efforts and each site may fall short of visitor expectations.

Have an idea, build the site then have another idea...

Mack.

[topsites]

I don't know, I never understood the concept of having more than one site, how could anyone keep up with it?
I can see perhaps two very related sites, or if each page equals a site then that would work...

As for me, the domain is just required bs in order to put something online with a steady address that never changes. To others, the domain has to do with keywords and they feel the words in the domain name help the visitor locate the proper place.

But then, for all that, why not just one site, want to build more pages, then just do it... Why another entire domain, each one costs registration fees, each one involves dns bs, each one requires a host, technically you need a dedicated server just for the domains and I hate the waste of tld's but that's just me.

Still, there is logic, supposedly there is SEO crap in there somewhere but whether it means more traffic one way or the other, that I do not know.

For me, a site is never finished, one can add and build and build until the cows come home and beyond. Pages inside pages, add directories, add MMoRpgs, add a forum (see some sites are JUST a forum, to me a forum is merely a part of a site)... Some sites are just games, to me games are just part of a site, and so on... Look at Yahoo, that place is HUGE and they COULD have built 100 or 1,000 or more domains out of it, but they didn't.

Then again, I do like a FEW multi-domain networks, I think if it's done right, it has class. But, so does the righteous single domain...

I guess what I'm trying to say is ultimately you decide which you want to do, but whether you build one site or many, it's all the same in the end, except perhaps the nomenclature / linkage.

[guitaristinus]

Hey topsites,

I got some time. Here are some thoughts.

What's that guy's name, the one who started Wikipedia? Heck, I'll make use of this internet thing and do some research. It's Jimmy Wales. Anyway, before Wikipedia, which has been in the press a lot lately and often seen in the SERPs, Jimmy had a website called Bomis, which included a section with adult photos called "Bomis Babes." You can probably see why he wanted a new domain for Wikipedia.

My first domain was chosen for my wife's business. I loaded about six directories on it selling Amazon books and CDs, DirecTV, vitamins and car info. It was OK, but all that extra stuff has nothing to do with her business.

Then I got an idea for an eco travel site. The site is pretty big (several thousand pages). I wanted some branding and came up with a domain name that had something to do with nature and travel. The site did OK for about 3 months until it got blacklisted from Google.

I needed another domain (for Google). I went ahead and got two for my hotels merchant for the key words "hotels" and "accommodations". Maybe having the keyword in the domain helps.

I have a site about playing guitar. When someone sees the domain name I want them to know its about playing guitar, not wondering why the domain has "hotels" in it.

I got a real estate site that I don't want people wondering why it has a domain with "guitars" or "hotels" in it.

I could have a domain, fkdf8.com, and all anyone would wonder is how I came up with that name.

I think Amazon overdid it with all the stuff they're loading on to their brand. At least they got another domain for Alexa.

My site about guitars is kind of like a book in that it has instruction and a very large selection of songs. The instruction is complete in what I think the readers want to learn. Actually, there is much more than they need to know. I could add on to it with record and concert reviews. But I don't want to. To me, it's finished like a hard copy book would be finished. Although it's neat that I can add on to it at anytime.

The cost of registration and hosting is hardly worth considering, about $20/year.

About the linkage; I think having different domains helps with search engine ranking.

The dns stuff is easy after the first domain. It's all on the same host, registered with the same registrar. Most of my domains are registered for ten years so I don't have to worry about renewing them. And I have auto renew in case I'm off doing something else at the time

Cheers.

[webjourneyman]

Thanks for your great reply´s. I´m leaning towards making one site my prestige site and devote time and energy on it without expecting much ROI (even though I long learned that it stands for return on investment I allways think king in french first). And to fire of smaller sites for other ideas and then monitor them for traffic and reactions to see what would be most moneywise to focus on. Acording to Murphys law it´s most certain that it will be one of those that I have little belief in that will take off and start a life independant of me, much like Sherlock Holmes grew over A. Conan Doyles head. What nonsense am I writning here? Think I need sleap.

[Essex_boy]

Sometimes the crappy site makes more money than the great one- Thats true ive a partly completed thats a joke but it makes as much as teh one I worked really hard on, ......

[steve40]

Junanagoh
It's never the money that stops me just not enough hours in the day
and I have tried subcontracting out creating the content but have never been happy with the results.

Through the following reasons
1 Content copied and plagerised from other sites
2 Poor grammar
3 Weak content

So now if I have an idea it takes anything from 1 month to 6 months to research the content and 1 month to produce the website

Many have said this before and many will say it again CONTENT IS KING but not content for content's sake something your visitors will find of use , if the search engines also like your content that is a bonus

so single site or multiple sites will work

The changes that have happened over the last 2 years have made the creation of multiple websites more important due to sandboxes etc.
So my personal advice ( for what it's worth ) create 1st website after research then promotion up to the amount you can afford then onto the next , hopefully by the time you have created your second website your first is starting to reap rewards and you can carry on building up with more content

steve

[Essex_boy]

STEVE40: Does that lead to way better results? In terms of earnings etc

[steve40]

Essex_boy
No I suppose your right that it doesn't provide massive increases in income in the short term but does have advantages in that if the SE's dump you not every bit of income dissapears all at one go so you can keep going to fight another day without getting back on the corporate missery trail

steve