Microsite campaign good or bad idea for SERP

[SEODinosaur]

I clicked on the renters insurance tab however I don't see the 67 links. However I see the quick links to instant quotes which link to external sites like lifequotes.com.

I've never really heard of a microsite campaign however in my opinion yes it's bad because it's spread out.

I do know that having a URL structure of www.brandname/keyword allows you to build a brand rather than a bunch of micropages. Google wants to rank sites that will help their users.

[EGOL]

Anyway, i asked google for a list of the next 300 best 'renters insurance' keywords and bought ALL 300 exact-match domains.

speechless

These types of battles are not won in a factory.  They are won using content, smarts, and solid promotion.  The more competitive the niche the more solid promotion will be needed.

Your niche is pretty competitive.

You build your armada of hotdog stands and I'll build a single website.  I'll work 40 hours a week on my site and you work 8 minutes per week on each of your 300 sites.  I know that I am going to win.

One of the main strategies of battle is to "divide and conquer".  The hotdog stand  strategy plays to defeat.

=============

Full disclosure...  I used to own an armada of hotdog stands... then build a big site that kicked all of their asses - and their competitor's too!

[Lifequotes]

On the right nav (middle) if you click 'renters insurance' it randomly goes to one of the 67 live sites.  Click and look at the domain

[SEODinosaur]

@EGOL lol/lmao..  @lifeQuotes I would focus on one site and add the SEOmoz blog feed to your RSS for some ideas : )

It's challenging but not impossible.

[Lifequotes]

Tell that to  Dick Portillo, millionaire owner of Portillo's hot dogs chain, one of the best in Chicago.  He makes more money than Jean and Georgettis (best steak house in Chicago).

Anyway, this rhetoric isnt helpful to any of us.  I'm looking for opinions based on working knowledge of microsite campaigning vs. single site.  Obviously your hunch is that a microsite is a 'losing battle'.  I get it.  Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

By the way, all 300 sites are build dynamically from 1 page of code using Wordpress as CMS.  I work 8 minutes on all 300 sites and get as much done as most people can in 40 hours!

[EGOL]

I work 8 minutes on all 300 sites and get as much done as most people can in 40 hours!

I know  that is efficient.  I use a similar method.  But  that is only good for the factory work part.  To win in this niche you gotta promote the site and have at least one page of great content on each domain.

You put one page of great content on each of your domains and I'll put all 300 on mine.  I am going to win.

When that is done you still have just 8 minutes per week to promote your sites and I still have 40 hours.

[Lifequotes]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

I also own ConsumerInsuranceGuide.com and have 1000 articles published in many insurance verticals.  But I thought it was too vague.

I would call this Penguin bait.

I would attack this with one site, 20 articles that are best-on-the-web for their topic and all of my remaining resources would go into getting editorial links into those 20 articles.

If you are targeting "renters insurance in statename" then those articles would target the 20 states with highest renter value.   That might be units*household income.

These articles would not be yada yada yada renters insurance yada yada yada.  They would be kickass stories that people would link to and share on facebook.

[Lifequotes]

Penguin bait?  We have a handful of professional writers in house putting up GREAT content at ConsumerInsuranceGuide.com,  and have done this before--successfully.  The last time we made this 'Penguin Bait' we sold it to QuinStreet for 16 million.  http://www.elliotsblog.com/insure-com-sells-for-16-million-7361  The value was in the 7,000 authorative articles and their respective pagerank and backlinks.  Like you say good content beats SEO every time.

Do you really think its 'penguin bait'????

What specifically (or generally) is wrong there??? Initially i wasnt posting question about ConsumerInsuranceGuide.com but now that you mention it i'm VERY interested--especially since we have several hundred thousand dollars spent there already on high-quality original content.

[Lifequotes]

Hey Donnie,

I was reviewing your suggestions and have a quick question:  what is the number after the keyphrase you listed here:

online renters insurance - 210

Disability quotes - 480

consumer insurance guide - 58

life quotes - 301,000

renters insurance illinois - 46

e health insurance - 2,400

[Lifequotes]

Never mind Donnie,

It looks like you used Google keyword tool, exact...

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents and experience...

My experience: Built a network of about 50 microsites, SEOed them to the max, built some strong links to them and boom, week later was getting some real traffic. Time goes by, new algorithms released and the sites start to lose their rankings. In fact, the only thing they rank for is their EMD terms (which you don't have). Granted, you seem to have a better upkeep of them but the SERPs trend is not in your favor.

I agree with the others, you should focus on building 1 powerful site vs many microsites. Microsites were the shit back in the day several months back, but today its the big dogs that rank. First page results are filled with brands (usually multiple listings per domain) and microsites are trending down. Quality > quantity, for both links and sites.

My suggestion is to combine all those microsites into one super site that is most easily branded + contains all or a portion of your target keyword in the URL. Just copy/paste all the articles from the microsites to the one site and 301 redirect to the new respective pages.

Also, make sure you do a search before you jump to conclusions about keyword traffic. "life quotes" returns results about life related quotations. Trying to rank for insurance with that keyword is an uphill battle.

If you go through with the transferring all content to one site and 301ing the pages, be sure to post your results here!

Cheers,

Oleg