How to expand the website - the smartest way?

Hey,

I own a basketball-news website and my platform is WordPress. However, now I want to expand to other sports. What would be the best way to do it? More WP installations with subdomains maybe? Such as basketball.domain.com

Or I should put it all on one website? Please tell me what's the best way. I need to get this done by the end of the next month.
Thanks!

 

Create a new site. Don't put it all in one site. If something goes wrong at least you still have a backup.

 

I would have an automatic backup anyway.

 

What he is trying to say is that if the visitors on one site drop, you still have other sites to earn you money. If you put everything on one site and the visitors drop, you won't earn money.

 

Personally, I think subdomains look nicer, but subpages will get more SEO juice, because they are part of the same old domain, with it's ranking and age and everything. A subdomain is pretty much a brand new website.

 

Well, right now on my domain I have basketball content only. So if I decide to implement other sports, I will have to move my current content to a new category "basketball", so it will ruin my links and backlinks, right? Is there any way to avoid it?

 

Expanding through sub-domain would be the most cleanest way to do it IMO.

 

Thank you!

Now, if I do it, I am wondering if there is a way to do this...
For example if I have a basketball.domain.com and hockey.domain.com, is there any way to make domain.com get content from subdomains and create a slideshow or just combine it all into latest news?

I suppose I will have a separate WP installation for each subdomain or is there a way to separate categories into subdomains?

 

Put all of them in one installation. There are two ways to achieve this.
1. Use Wordpress Multi sites - There will be a lot of tables created if you do this and you would need to manage each sites individually. ( google "should I use wordpress multi-site" and see the merits and demerits).

2. Through htaccess - Make category archives / Custom page templates and use [NC] redirects from let's say - hockey.site.com to site.com/hockey/. This is much more manageable IMO.

For both, you would need to set wild-card domain entries from your domain management panel. PM me/ Post here if you need any help on doing any of these

 

Oh I will definitely need help haha, sounds confusing as I've never messed with htaccess before and those wild-card things. I'll decide when I'll do it and then get back at you. Thanks for the help!

 

your main domain is niche related or some random domain ? I mean it includes word "basketball" ?

 

It doesn't include that world, it's like a "brand" name.

 

It depends very much on your topics.

If you stay with Basketball or with similar popular sports (say Football, Cricket), then you could use 1 domain. Instead of using subdomains you could even use folders thus using link power for the whole domain FOR ALL THE folders/types of sport.

Using subdomains instead kind of separates sites more already, Google views them more like separate domains right now.

Last but not least, there's also the option of using completely separate domains which I'd recommend in case you want to go into completely other topics, be it coaching, banking, eating habits or health.

 

I think you can start 4-5 blogs with mixed games, But you have to maintain articles for all games as well, It will get good traffic for sure.

 

If its brandable domain I would combine everything and make a huge sport authority site

 

IMO.. Using sub domains, you can be able to expand your site over more pages.

 

If your site has good stable traffic, your best option will be to expand it as a huge brand.

 

Lol not a server back up... A back up plan if your traffic tanks.

 

It would depend how your site is currently structured. If your main domain is generic, you may well use subdomains for different sports.

 

expand the site making it a siilo type site with pages for X and Y