Earlier this week I met with a potential client who sold personalized gifts. He’s got a really terrific product line, something that I’ve never seen anywhere else. In fact, I’m probably going to get me a Tshirt next week, even if he doesn’t hire me. It’s that cool.
During the meeting, he was telling me how he had control over each page footer, how he could build out each footer to be different, link to different pages, etc. That’s cool, could help with his internal linking.
But then he started telling me how he could build different pages for slightly different terms, and them link them through the footer, thus creating an entire network of pages. For instance: Mother’s Day
mothers-day.htm
mothers-day-gifts.htm
mothers-day-ideas.htm
personalized-mothers-day-gifts.htm
and so on.
These micropages, in his mind, could each be optimized for their particular keyphrase, and they’d ultimately dump the visitor to the same products.
I think that’s a bad strategy and can explain with one word – dillution.
By creating a network of similar pages, you’re dilluting the domain and potential authority that site may have for “mothers day” terms by spreading them across 5, 10 or whatever amount of pages.
I think building one page that ranks nicely for Mother’s Day is the way to go.
But – you say – if he creates 10 pages with 10 different targeted keyphrases, isn’t he increasing his landing pages by 10? Sure, but he’s dilluting the chance that any one of those 10 will ever rank for any of those terms.
One Strong Page
The smart way to go is to build one awesomely authoritative page. Put links to the various product or product categories that Mom would like, and then add some content that reflects mother’s day. Naturally use a few different keyphrases (don’t go overboard here) and you’ll be ahead of the curve. Need an example? Check out what Zappos did.
Step two would be to build links back to the Mother’s Day page with various anchor texts, thus ranking that one page for many related terms.
MicroSites
The inspiration for this post came after I read Vanessa Fox’s article today on microsites. I agree with her that these sites can cause confusion for visitors and search engines alike. They also spread out your web designer/SEO guy’s time between several domain names. That time (and money) would be better focused building one kick-ass domain.
Niche Sites – Not to Be Confused
Lastly, I wanted to mention that there’s a definite difference between a microsite that’s created simply for the reason of pushing traffic to a main site and a niche site.
Niche sites are sites created for the purpose of cornering a particular market (for instance bluedoorknobs.com) and selling to that small & tightly focused audience. These sites can be highly profitable, depending on the audience. At no time to niche sites “dump” their visitors off to a bigger and better site in order to expand their sales. They’re there to sell blue door knobs and that’s it.
The Debate Goes On
I know there are those out there who disagree about both the micropage and microsite strategy. I’d love to hear what you have to say!
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I think an ideal use of a microsite is when you offer content in other languages
I think the microsite strategy is grey hat at best. I know of a few companies around town that implement this sort of strategy built around keyword rich URLs.
I literally gave the exact same advice to a friend who works for one of these companies. It’s only a matter of time before tactics like this, (the kind that don’t provide any real value to the visitor) will go by the wayside as Google gets smarter and devalues these types of links.
Just my 2 cents!
James, I agree. I know of a big SEO company in town that uses this approach, and do quite well with it. But I think long term they’re doing a disservice to their customers. Build one strong domain and dominate.