What would you rather have? A network of sites or a single site that has everything the network has? Why?
Work on a single site and make it successful. Once that first site is moving foreward and you're happy with the results, create a second site that targets the same demographic and share the traffic. From there, just replicate the process and you're on your way to owning a successful network of websites. So to answer your question, I prefer a high quality network of websites. Not a network of MFA sites. Once you have one successful site, it's easy to create a successful network of sites just by targeting the same demographic as your first site. Did that make sense?
I've gone both routes. Here's what's proved to work the best (in multiple niches): Start off with a few different sites in the same niche, and connect them in network fashion somehow (such as simple footer or sidebar links). After they increase in rankings, you can always combine them to have one "master site" that covers various topics in the niche, and you can simply redirect the old sites to the new sections on the main site. It's helped me build PR faster, recognition faster, and more cross-promotional opportunities (for example, I used to run an indie music blog, webzine, and directory... people are more likely to do you a favor when you're able to help them out through multiple sites of yours, like a free link plus a CD review plus a profile on the blog). I put my business sites together, and now it's my largest and most profitable site. I'm in the process of condensing and expanding my music sites. Like Activeweb said though, it's important that the sites be quality and not simply an MFA site with poor content no matter what format you choose.
if you have the time i would say start a network together. but try to work on all of the as much as required. this way if you work hard you'll have sever good sites. if not and only one of couple of them grow this one will help the others to stand up. and overall several sites will help you a lot with back links!
One big site is better for branding, but Jhmattern is correct too: a few sites together have more ways of helping others out and getting goodwill. So far I've gone for the one site approach though.
If you want to make some serious money then go for one large site. There are many people that say if you make $1 from one site and have 50 sites then that's $50 a day. I can tell them that by the time they have put all them 50 sites together and update them with content, designed each one differently and advertised them, they would be earning about $200 or more per day from their one large site and not $50. It shows that big sites make more. For example: Yahoo Google MSN Yahoo MySpace FaceBook Stumbleupon Digitalpoint Etc... Do I really need to list more here or do you get the picture. Although this is just what I think and if you wanted to do more than one site, it is entirely up to you. Must admit, earlier last year I had a total of 27 sites. I closed 22 of them down in one go, straight away earlier this year. I then closed another down about 4 months ago. That now leaves me with 4 sites. Even 4 sites is alot.
I wouldn't go with just one site. 2-3 in different niches would probably be better than either 1 or hundreds. It's not too much to keep updated, and you're not putting all of your eggs in one basket if one niche suddenly becomes so oversaturated that your earnings drastically drop.
I would concentrate on a single site and when it become powerful enough, then start to build other mini niche sites.
you can't compare this kind of site with yahoo or... these are the biggest sites on the net! and i doubt he's aiming for that kind of site! but about the money making part that mainly goes back to the time and effort that he's going to dedicated to the site or sites, the more you work on them the more you get doesn't matter if you have series of site, one site or just a blog at blogspot! but if you put all your effort on a network i think you'll get a better result!
Keep in mind that it also has a lot to do with whether you're doing this part-time to earn a little extra money, or full-time to earn your living. If you only have 10 hours per week for everything, one site might really be all you can handle... but you can always grow and expand.
Personally, I'm all about creating mini-nets. It's what all the big boys on the 'net do, despite often preaching or endorsing doing the opposite. You certainly know, that although many come out with "Tell-All" products, they are not really telling you all.. I hope that's pretty obvious. Having several sites linked together very specifically, (do it wrong and you might just be screwed), gives you greater reach, better SEO capability and as the old adage says: don't put all your eggs in one basket. Having multiple sites within a niche, rather than one giant one, gives you many more "outs" if your profit, popularity, or leverage fall short of your expectations. Rob -
This is good discussion. I'm facing the same dilema as to whether to expand one of my sites, or create individual niche sites that are somewhat related to the main site. I'm inclined to go with one big site, but will difinitely experiment with smallers ones in the future.
The first and last time I had a single site was 1994. But, the answer to your question depends on what you're doing. You can easily take 1 site to 2,3,4 or more if you're monetizing differently. Now, there's a difference between then and setting up 1000 blogs without making 1 blog successful first. But, in the end, it's up to you. There's no best way. Your ability, intelligence and creativity will dictate your course of action and your result. Oh, and luck will work its ugly head into that equation too.
True that. I would rather promote one site and making it successful. Its alot easier if you're running a one man show or you dont have alot of money to promote. Having a network may be too time consuming and costly.
Actually, there are more risks involved with only running a single site. For example, if your site focuses on a hot set of keywords right now, the advertising market for them might completely vanish in a few months when the topic's not of so much interest anymore. Or, if you have all of your income coming from just one site, and that site faces some kind of legal issue or really bad PR, you could lose your traffic (and therefore revenue), and not have backup income from other site sources. Lots of risks involved, and precisely why you shouldn't put all of your eggs into one basket as a few of us have already mentioned.