Niche vs One massive site

[daenterpri]

In the past I've done fairly well building niche sites for automotive accessories. The problem is, it's hard paying attention to 50+ sites after a while, and the quality ends up going down.

Because of this, I've decided to focus on one large site for trucks and their accessories. I have a site called truckprofile.com where people can create profile pages for their various trucks. It gets fair traffic for not doing much with it. I recently threw a blog on the site: truckprofile.com/blog. This will be my area for posting articles on niche, commonly searched, easy to rank for phrases.

So my questions are:

1. Is building one massive site better?
2. If so, how should I structure the blog area so that each article ranks well? Would it be better if they were well categorized pages in wordpress instead of blog posts?
3. By posting all the articles on a single site, does that mean it will be harder to rank for any single thing since the topic is so broad?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[UnderRugSwept]

1. Is building one massive site better?

For SEO and for your own peace of mind, yes. You'll only have one site to keep track of and to do SEO on. That site will build up authority over time, thereby getting better traffic and rankings.

1. If so, how should I structure the blog area so that each article ranks well? Would it be better if they were well categorized pages in wordpress instead of blog posts?

The blog area should be a blog instead of Wordpress pages. Otherwise, why wouldn't you just make them regular pages the main part of your website? All you have to do is make a category for each niche.

1. By posting all the articles on a single site, does that mean it will be harder to rank for any single thing since the topic is so broad?

Not necessarily. Google likes to rank authority sites. If you are maintaining 50+ sites, it would be safe to assume they do not get a lot of traffic and don't have a lot of authority. But with one site, you are getting all the traffic of the 50+ sites on a single site. The more you put into a SINGLE site the more it will gain authority. An internal page of a site with a DA of say 60, could easily outrank the homepage of a DA20 site.

[daenterpri]

I appreciate your help : )

So for instance, if I write an article about a brand of truck bed liner, would I:

A: Create as many niche categories as I can to add that article, all relating to the topic of bed liners?

B: Pick a single, easy to rank for category for that article?

Pick a single category that readers will most likely recognize for that article?

Lastly, is there a good strategy I should be using for tags? Or should I leave tags alone?

Thanks again!

[UnderRugSwept]

I'd suggest a combination of B and C. If you have to compromise, don't compromise B for the sake of C. C could be compromised for the sake of B a little bit, but better to find the perfect balance of the two, of course.

As far as tags go, two basic things to remember is to only give something a certain tag if your post is about that tag/word or mentions it in great detail. If it only mentions it once in passing, maybe don't give it that tag.

Another practice that a lot of people use with tags is to keep them at one word each unless they're proper names or brands. For example, if you post is about truck brakes, add the tags "truck" and "brakes" rather than "truck breaks." Most people say don't go over 10 tags per post. I don't know how much that actually matters, but I usually abide by that and it works for me.

Side point: I'd strongly recommend installing a plugin like Yoast and noindexing all tag pages.

[UnderRugSwept]

Well, what do you know? SEOmoz just put out a blog post today that could be exactly what you need! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success

[daenterpri]

I appreciate your help. I saw the SEOmoz article this morning, thought it was appropriate

Andy