I run a fairly large and successful site (c. 10k pages, $2.5m sales) retailing goods that are culturally specialised but also highly competitive. Our oldest domain goes back to 1995 but we've only been retailing for a few years. We also have world-leading content in some of our most important keywords. 2/3 of our traffic is organic, with a very long tail. But in spite of our many strengths, I don't think our rankings are as good as they should be. Not even page 1 on google for our key keywords. And there's clearly a multi-million dollar prize if we can get it right. A few months ago we paid a local SEO company for a report that came up with some interesting stuff, but I found disappointing overall for the thousands we paid. So we've lost faith in them. But there's one big issue that came up which I suspect may be the killer, which I'd really appreciate opinions on before actioning, as if it goes wrong it could cost us big too. This is that our traffic is currently split amongst about two dozen domains (about 6 of which do most of the work) presenting sub-sets of the same core catalog, and with only limited interlinking. We did this originally to make our goods (which include a large number of specialist sub-categories) more attractive and accessible to special interest users, and our stats show that this does work in terms of raising conversion levels. We also sometimes find our sites filling the entire first 2-3 of pages on google for some more specialised keywords. Whilst this is nice, I'm a bit scared it might appear like scamming and get us penalised. And anyway, my hunch is that lower conversion of a bigger pie might be more sensible, so if we could drive fewer sites higher it would benefit us overall. Can anyone point me in the direction of research, resources, information, ideas, experiences, opinions, or anything else to help me make sense of this question. Would focussing all our traffic on our strongest core domain raise our overall placement a bit... or hugely? Sorry it's such a long question, but as you'll understand it's a big one for us!! Thanks in advance. I'll answer any questions if needed, but would prefer not to ID us publicly at this stage.
Sounds like your in a decent situation. What I would do is pick *one* site and go after the main KW's that can bring you major traffic. Let the other sites marinate longer. Just be sure who ever does your SEO that they don't go too crazy or do anything shady. If you want some specific advice feel free to PM me.