I already have a blog in a sports niche and it also has about 135 pages of products. I also make a lot of these type of products myself. I am thinking about setting up another site about how to make these products. I am thinking about making it a free membership site having them join basically for their e-mail address so I can get a list going for this. I plan to monetize the site by selling small ebooks I write for around $10.00 on how to make each of the different products. I also plan to market the tools and parts needed to make the products. My question is should I make them completely different sites or can I make a subdomain on the site I already have. I am not sure if it would affect sales on my main site but it may increase sales on the new site. Anyone have an opinion? I am leaning towards keeping them separate. I can link from the site I have now a lot of those people would like to learn this, that I am sure of. Anyone joining the new site may be interested in purchasing the products but are probably more interested in learning how to make these products to save money and have a nice hobby. IMJim
I would definitly make them separate. On one hand you can say that the sites are related, but on the other hand it isn't. The people that visit your blog are hopefully there for the content. Therefor shouldn't earn money on blogging be your main plan of making money of them. They are there for the sports. So sell them something that is related! But by any means, as long as your blog looks professional and profitable you could add a link to your other site. As for the other site aswell. You shouldn't create your content thinking about the readers of your sports blog. Use it as an example of a profitable blog you have. This got kind of messy, but to sum it up in one sentence: Don't shoot for the wrong crowd!
That's what that blog does, sells products related to the sport. The other site will teach them how to make some of these products for themselves. I do for sure want to still sell the products. Even though I make the products I still buy them a lot also. There are just some things I can't make.
Yeah seperate sites with different domains would work. Just make sure you don't crowd the site too much with all your products, people get overwhelmed when there are lots to look at and move onto another site!
Make them separate. Separate entities that recommend each others products are a lot better than just one name recommending it's own. It should convert higher.