Right now, I am in the preliminary stages of planning my niche web site(s). The question I have at hand is: Is it more beneficial to have one web site like Wikipedia or Ezine that contains a large variety of categories, or is it better to have loads of mini sites that are about specific niches? I assume it's better for the minisites instead, but need a professional opinion. It would be hard to push out as many articles as a place like Wikipedia or Ezine has, so it probably wouldn't work, but filling up a web site just about hair loss wouldn't be as difficult, and ranking for the popular terms, like "Alopecia" should be rather easy. Fill me in guys!
IMO, small sites with special niches. Why? You won't be competing with that many other websites for SERPs and if you find a niche that is not known well, you can dominate easily and it'll be hard for the newer websites to beat you once you are dominating. The downside is that you won't be able to get as much traffic as if you make a big site that includes everything.
Why can't he have all the niches on one web site ? One website with lots of categories and sub categories is much better. Imagine having a shit load of small niche sites, they will most likely be sand boxed for several months to begin with, hard to manage them all. then there's hosting them all, people say "you can host them all on one small server" - my ass , I have one blog that can't handle 170 visitors on at once- and that's a dedicated server running wordpress. Go with one large site, have all your niches categorized neatly, that way you can manage them easily, you wont have to update individual sites, your one site is always updated. Niche is over used - you don't need to concentrate on one niche to succeed. just write about what's popular at the minute, niche sites quickly become yesterdays news ....
What does "all the niches" mean? Five, 500, 75? Can all the niches be unrelated, ex. cooking and politics and needlework and car repair and baby care all thrown together? Throw all of that together on one site instead of dedicating one site for each niche? I'd be hard pressed to go with one big site; unless you're aiming at a new article directory, or a new Wikipedia. How is one big site with 50 niches easier to manage than 50 small sites you manage on a rotation basis? - every day a different site is updated with new content, or something similar. I'm no expert on hosting mechanics, but what's the difference between 170 visitors to one site and 17 visitors to 10 different sites hosted on the same account? If the one is going to be a problem, the other should be problematic as well, right? Again, "have all your niches categorized neatly" - how many niches are we talking here? Are they related, or completely unrelated? The idea of niches categorized neatly is sound, if you're creating a new article directory or reference site (and you plan to work with a dozen people for the next couple of years). By now I feel a little bad. I don't mean to be nit-picking, but "niche is over used"? Since when does it not make sense to focus on one topic, for example sports betting, but rather throwing your sports betting tips, reviews and articles on one site with your tips on handicrafts, vegetarian food and building your own computer?
After a few, the word niche looses its meaning .... sure they can. Have a look at the site in my sig, I have over 50 categories, look at my archives - new blog and yet 1000s of posts and only me working on it. OK one big site will be a CMS, little sites only work as HTML based sites, flat files, after a period of time the information is history and no longer valid - at that point a CMS can just be updated, the mini sites need a complete overhaul. Why can't you have 50 small CMS sites ? to exhausting on your server. Very heavy on a server, to much going on, you'd need HTML pages and very little PHP / blogs etc or a very good server - plust the costs associated with 50 sites is more costly. Check out my site and see how much I have done in two weeks - from a couple hundred visitors to 10000 (daily) in two weeks - I am having trouble starting a second site of the same caliber. You're to restricted, the topic may be popular one minute and dead within a week, you know what my niche is "News" - covers everything. You are also very limited to the amount of content and originality. ~~~~~ Oh and here's some stats : http://www.histats.com/viewstats/?SID=482714&SEID= - I purchased the domain for $30 and built it from scatch, I have had it for about 20 days, so this is my sample or proof.
I will always say that for individuals you are far better off going for the highly targeted mini-sites, and for corporations to tackle the massive projects.
I agree with Gallito. thsadmin, you did clear up a few things, but I think the issue is one of broad application, and probability of success. If you give the big, one site-multiple niche project to 100 people, maybe 2% would actually pull it off and achieve some degree of success. If the same 100 people do small, "highly targeted mini-sites," I'd say at least 20% would be able to manage their projects sufficiently well for some degree of success. Good luck to you (thsadmin) if you can manage the multiple category site; it sounds like you're doing well with it.
From a logistics viewpoint I have to agree with thsadmin. First look at the costs - with one big site you only pay for one domain name versus renewing 20 domain names every year. One of my favorite bloggers has a saying - every site must pay it's own rent - in other words domain registration and hosting. It's easier to recoup your returns with one domain name. If you outgrow your hosting and have to move, it's much easier to move one site than 20. Moving on to site management, again it's easier to manage and update one site than 20. It's also easier to do content analysis and see what niches are doing well and then focus on building more content for that area without neglecting your other topics. Say you have 20 niches, two are doing really well for the moment and the others have nothing new to report... so you're posting content furiously in the two areas and not the others... with one site your website is still getting updated frequently... with 20 websites only 2 are getting updated and the other 18 appear to be neglected. Talk about upgrading and updating... every website needs a design overhaul and updates to modules, code, etc... easier to do with one site than 20. Also easier to identify and plug security holes on one site than 20. Niches are very fluctuant and unpredictable, and your niche site may become obsolete in a very short time. The one advantage I see with minisites is if you decide to sell them off then it's easier to sell several small sites than one big one. I still think one big site is the way to go though, especially if you design it well from the outset and use an intuitive easy to navigate menu system.
Personally, I would advise you go with the mini sites. Providing you can get them ranking highly in search engines for their targeted keywords, you will make a lot of money from them. The reason that I wouldn't go with a big site with hundreds/thousands of niche in is simple: Wikipedia rule that market, and without investing a lot (and I mean a LOT) on advertising alone, you're going to be outmuscled by Wikipedia.
A niche is not as limited as some may think. It is just a smaller segment of a market. You can set up a blog around a less competitive keyword phrase and actually compete against those that have bigger budgets. Whether or not you should have 20 sites vs. one huge site depends on your goals.
SunHunter, before you decide which way to go, read "Revenge of the Mininet" by Michael Campbell. He reveals all!
I am making $20 - $40 per day with Adsense & another $15 - $20 per day with The news room (pay per impression) videos. So any where between $40 & $60 per day. How do you come to those figures ? Yeah I have several tricks I use to pull it off fast and add content quickly (and a little luck). I don't compete with Wiki .... wiki and I have completely different themes, Wiki has articles & I have small pieces from other other sites - like 3 pieces from Youtube, 3 pieces from Digg, 3 pieces from nacho photo and 3 pieces from Yahoo answers - per post. Wiki also have old news, they don't have fresh articles on random news, like I do, they don't have episode guides - like I do, they don't have todays fresh popular news - like I do ..... You're going down the wrong track thinking that you have to compete against Wiki. ~~~~~~ Have a look at the site in my signature at my example.
If you have the content and the ability to make a huge website, then you should go with that. If you want to just make alot of traffic quick then you need to build niche sites. to go really big in traffic long term though you should build a big site