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Why Build a Niche Website?

June 11, 2004

Quality vs. Quantity

Larger is not necessarily better. Many people tell you to make tons of content but fail to explain exactly what quality content is. The biggest problem with growing extremely large is a complete loss of focus.

Adding on Cheap Businesses

If a person is a good web designer and understands a decent amount about how search engines work they can easily add SEO to their bucket of services. Hosting is also cheap too. Some people will add on a couple services to website design and call themselves a full service interactive media company.

It may sound impressive, but how often do you use the phrase "full service interactive media" in your daily routine? Next to zero I bet. So the message is harder to spread. It is far easier to be successful if you sharpen and focus your business efforts versus spreading your efforts across many industries.

Focusing in on an Industry

Telephone numbers were given 7 digits because human memory sharply drops off as you add much more data. In any industry people will usually only remember one or two products or companies.

Think of the name of a copy machine company. Think of another... it gets a bit harder as you go down the list.

There are full service internet marketing firms, and within the internet marketing industry there is the SEM community. The SEM community has the pay per click side and the organic search result side.

The organic search results side of SEM consists of keyword research, copywriting, link building services, and link brokers. If you look in DMOZ there are over 800 generic or full service SEO firms.

Each of the generic SEO firms probably has a less than one in one hundred chance of being a well known industry leader within the industry.

The Ranking Problem with Line Extension

If you make a huge website then many pages will be multiple links deep into the site. Many of the links into your site will usually be linked to the home page.

Having only one home page on a huge site versus having five or six really focused sites means you will probably only have one chance to rank well for really competitive phrases. You will need to build extreme link popularity into your site to have your inner pages rank really well for competitive search terms (unless the inner page is an extremely unique well positioned idea).

The Linking Problem with Line Extension

The web is a big social network. Many quality links are based upon business partnerships. If you host, design, and promote sites you make it hard for hosts, designers, or marketers to link to you. People do not generally like to link to their competition, especially their unfocused competition.

If you pick a focus on a single industry it is much easier to make business partnerships with other sites around your business idea that do not directly compete with you.

Inside the Consumers Mind

As you add to your services you lose the positioning you have for your other services. When Google bought Blogger they left the name Blogger alone. When you think Google they want you to think search. When you think search they want you to think Google.

While line extension may at first seem like a good idea it often hurts businesses more than it helps them. When Heinz became ketchup it lost it's position as pickles. Right now I can tell you who I would refer you to for almost anything in SEO because certain people have branded themselves that way. Certain people become synonymous with ideas within their industry.

Breaking Down the SEO Industry

When I think of SEO there are really only a few companies that come to mind (out of many hundreds or thousands of companies). When I think of each of the market segments I usually think of one or two people or websites.

SEO Copywriting: People argue as to whether or not copywriting or links are more important. Obviously both matter at least somewhat. Jill Whalen positioned herself as "The SEO Copywriter."

It does not matter if she is right or wrong in her thinking how important SEO copywriting is. If you think you need an SEO Copywriter then you likely will end up running into Jill Whalen.

Linking is Important: In that whole arguement about whether llinking or copywriting is more important John Scott branded himself as the person who thinks links rule the world. His voice has been rather crass and perhaps too loud for some, but he has established a brand. If you believe in the power of links there is a good chance you will run into John Scott.

Announcing Websites: Sometimes landing a big client can make your name. Eric Ward helped build the Amazon.com linking campaign.

He has since worked for many other large national or international sites with his website announcement service. If you need to announce your website it is likely you will run into Eric Ward.

Link Brokers: There are only a handful of large link brokers on the web. I can think of maybe a half dozen off hand.

By taking Google to court for lowering his PageRank SearchKing made himself the ridicule of many jokes. He now has a gigantic new office. He too was laughing all the way to the bank.

Sometimes adding on extra things to combat problems within your industry boosts your popularity and may define you as a leader within your industry. Recently Google began to stop parsing link popularity on some sites that were selling links and Jarrod Hundt came up with a service called BlockedPR.com that tracks these sites.

Patrick Gavin's Text Link Ads advertises everywhere in the SEO space.

Odds are that if you need a link broker you stand a good chance of running into the PRadNetwork, Text Link Ads, or TextLinkBrokers.

Keyword Research: Thought to be too small or too focused of an idea by many SEO firms, keyword research became a lucrative field for Dan Thies.

Dan Thies snatched the opportunity to become synonymous with keyword research. He has just about zero competitors and if you need help with keyword research you will likely stumble into Dan Thies.

Article Summary

• The web is a social structure where many links are based on business partnerships.
• If you have a huge broad sweeping business it is usually harder to get free links.
• People usually only remember a few names in any field.
• Most people become successful by focusing their energies versus expanding their offerings.

- by Aaron Wall, owner of Search Marketing Info

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