How wide should we go with the niche when starting an authority site? BassTrackerBoats?

[alexa_s]

Let's say you want to start a very large authority website with the main categories Funny | Science | Movies | Technology | News ( I realize those are a dumb combination, they are random and just an example), because all of those interest you, you know you can write well on these topics and you feel that they all share a mildly similar demographic, despite being unrelated at first glance. Is that a bad idea? Will one category of posts becoming popular (and people linking to them) lead to google giving you authority only in this category (i.e treating your different unrelated categories almost as separate websites when it comes to authority/seo power)?

If in theory you could produce an infinite amount of very high quality and helpful posts in multiple categories, would you combine them in a single authority website, or would you focus only on one general niche per website? How wide is too wide when it comes to selecting a niche?

BTW it's pretty clear that most of the people starting 'authority' sites in 'my journey discussions' are in fact making very small niche-websites with 30 or so articles. We are talking about real authority sites here, with thousands of first-page rankings and strong social presence

 

[LostConnection]

If you are dedicated to putting in the time, effort and money to make the authority site become an actual authority site, you can go as wide as you want.

Keeping in mind, some niches might not be the best combinations, like baby food, chainsaws and jet fuel, so keep the audience in mind. So in my opinion too wide is combining niches that don't work together, but if you are set within the entertainment niche for example, you can definitely do news, games, Hollywood rumours and movies in the same site. But, might make more sense to break it up into a gaming website and a movie website, if you wish to get results faster and with a smaller investment.

 

[Aty]

Since you are addressing to BTB, you could just simply send him a pm or post in his authority site journey thread.

 

[alexa_s]

Since you are addressing to BTB, you could just simply send him a pm or post in his authority site journey thread.

Yea, thanks, I am not one to bother people with PMs, I am sure he gets enough of those already I am not addressing this question to him directly per se, just would be cool if he answers, as well as other people who have experience with this

 

[sudorank]

Writing from my experience.....

At the start, if you're building a huge authority website you want to be casting your net as wide as you can. (Niche Permitting) There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Different content will go viral in different ways.
2. Different content will monetise in different ways.
3. Some content won't sell, yet will pull in mass social signals.
4. You need a mix of monetised content and viral / SEO sharable content for your site to keep building.

No keyword tool in the world will tell you exactly how content will perform. Some of the best performing keywords I rank for right now don't even appear on keyword tools. Sometimes you just have to throw some mud at the wall, see what sticks, what sells, what goes viral and what gets backlinks. Your WordPress install won't look pretty, you will start to build interesting data though!

Do that for a solid 6 months, once you've some solid data behind you your content and outreach plan becomes far more measurable!

One thing I will say, don't neglect no4 on my list. If you can find a keyword, easily ranked - perhaps a problem that you've the answer too and has some decent traffic you've struck a goldmine. Not in the "slap and affiliate link on it" way, but in the slow, organic link gathering way. Those pages IMHO can launch a site into space if you find a good keyword - your SEO will more or less go on autopilot!

One thing I will say, don't get sold on the Matthew Woodward or Buzzfeed approaches to authority / content site building. IMHO both of those examples are an enigma, you'll spend so much time reverse engineering their methods and even then your chances of success are 50/50.

 

[alexa_s]

But, might make more sense to break it up into a gaming website and a movie website, if you wish to get results faster and with a smaller investment.

That's the question, would you get results faster if you made a website just around one category. If so, it would mean that the additional categories are hurting you, which doesn't make sense.

 

[alexa_s]

Writing from my experience.....

At the start, if you're building a huge authority website you want to be casting your net as wide as you can. (Niche Permitting) There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Different content will go viral in different ways.
2. Different content will monetise in different ways.
3. Some content won't sell, yet will pull in mass social signals.
4. You need a mix of monetised content and viral / SEO sharable content for your site to keep building.

No keyword tool in the world will tell you exactly how content will perform. Some of the best performing keywords I rank for right now don't even appear on keyword tools. Sometimes you just have to throw some mud at the wall, see what sticks, what sells, what goes viral and what gets backlinks. Your WordPress install won't look pretty, you will start to build interesting data though!

Do that for a solid 6 months, once you've some solid data behind you your content and outreach plan becomes far more measurable!

One thing I will say, don't neglect no4 on my list. If you can find a keyword, easily ranked - perhaps a problem that you've the answer too and has some decent traffic you've struck a goldmine. Not in the "slap and affiliate link on it" way, but in the slow, organic link gathering way. Those pages IMHO can launch a site into space if you find a good keyword - your SEO will more or less go on autopilot!

One thing I will say, don't get sold on the Matthew Woodward or Buzzfeed approaches to authority / content site building. IMHO both of those examples are an enigma, you'll spend so much time reverse engineering their methods and even then your chances of success are 50/50.

Solid post, exactly what I wanted to know!

 

[LostConnection]

That's the question, would you get results faster if you made a website just around one category. If so, it would mean that the additional categories are hurting you, which doesn't make sense.

You would most likely, since you could focus on content and SEO for only the certain keywords and the specific category.

The additional ones don't hurt you in a sense, they just multiply the efforts needed and make the social media marketing more difficult.

 

[Duffers5000]

As narrow as possible with room to expand outwards once you become established.

Unless you have a great budget and multiple writers available to you.You are pissing into the wind trying to rank for multiple topics on the one site.

 

[Silverbak]

Writing from my experience.....

At the start, if you're building a huge authority website you want to be casting your net as wide as you can. (Niche Permitting) There are a couple of reasons for this:

This is probably the most succinct and actionable post I've read on BHW in a while. I have one near Authority site and working on several others and am in complete agreement. Don't get greedy with affiliate links is key. I shoot for 2/3rds non-monetized (other than some non-affiliate banner ads) and 1/3 review/guide affiliate link type posts in my baby authority site (my bigger authority site is currently ecommerce but I'm doing so well with Amazon on other sites that I'm thinking about switching the ecommerce over to Amazon, other affiliate links, and monetization methods just to not have deal with customer service, fulfillment, more complex accounting, and a 1000 other hassles).

 

[SEO Power]

That's the question, would you get results faster if you made a website just around one category. If so, it would mean that the additional categories are hurting you, which doesn't make sense.

The additional categories can actually hurt your site because you'll be spreading yourself too thin and you won't be able to dedicate enough time to each category to make your site perform well in their respective niches.

 

[Zwielicht]

Keeping in mind, some niches might not be the best combinations, like baby food, chainsaws and jet fuel, so keep the audience in mind.

I don't know, I would imagine that it would appeal to overweight chainsaw-juggling clowns with Peter Pan syndrome, although I can't imagine there are too many of those.

 

[alexa_s]

Interesting Anyone else?