This question pops in and out of many heads each day when affiliates are thinking of starting up a new project, and it’s often a tough choice. If you already have a site related to your new project, should you just add a new section on to this site or start with a completely new domain? There really only two alternatives to starting fresh.
- Buy a site that is already established. These can be expensive and hard to find, but this can shorten the time it takes you to take this website to profit.
- Add a section to a current website you already own (if it’s relevant). I wouldn’t recommend adding a poker section to a site about underwater basket weaving.
Starting Fresh
If the two alternatives above don’t apply to you, you are forced to start fresh. Whenever I start fresh I try to do the following. This is assuming you have already decided on the topic of the site and done some keyword research.
- Write the core content. This will be the content for the home page, about page, and about 10-15 really solid articles (usually 500-1000 words) that people will actually read and enjoy.
- Come up with the basic site structure. How will the content be presented to the user?
- Determine how your internal linking structure will work with your design as your site grows. It may work fine with only 15 pages, but will it still be sufficient further down the road if your site reaches 100+ pages?
- Put the site together with the 15 really good pieces of content you wrote, and start looking for links.
- Add about five new pages to the site per week.
Within a few months your site should become established (getting a steady flow of traffic from search engines). Keep in mind the traffic will depend on how competitive your topic is and the quality of inbound links you point to your site. Keep adding good links and content, and eventually you will end up with a solid site. In six months to a year you could have a site that earns you some serious money each month depending on the niche you target.