19 replies to this topic

[nahanni]

We have a website with tips and advice about health products. The competition is quite tough in this field, but we have one product that is doing extremely well in search engines and other websites are starting to link to it as well.

We are thinking about creating a whole new website for this product only, and there are a few variations on the product itself that we would promote and sell.

Is this a good idea? Or, is it better to keep the current website as it is?

For the current site, the idea is to use 301 redirects on the few pages where this product is promoted, to go to the new website, which would have much of the same contents as the current website.

Advice appreciated!

[Jill]

I have a hard time imagining a whole website just for one product. Do you generally see stores that sell only one product?

I suppose it could work and be good, it just seems weird to me.

[nahanni]

I have a hard time imagining a whole website just for one product. Do you generally see stores that sell only one product?

I suppose it could work and be good, it just seems weird to me.

Well, it is in fact 3 differnt products made out of a certain plant. There are also many recipes, tips, background information on why it is good for you, etc to put on the site, so there would be several pages of useful information. There are other sites that sell the same thing but we are listed higher in search engines for this plant product.

[Randy]

I would keep it right where it's at since your current site is already ranking well for your key phrases. To me it would be silly to volunteer to start all over again from scratch, especially since you say it's a fairly competitive market place and you've already managed to rank well.

If it requires anything, I would simply beef up the information about your product(s) on the current site. There's nothing to say you couldn't focus more on your product at the current site, or even dedicate a whole section of your site to the product(s).

[tina]

Nahanni - it looks as if you are working your way into a niche market - very desirable! I agree with Jill and Randy - don't create a new site, just start moving that product into the bright 'limelight'.
You have all sorts of great seo issues to work with, too.
Congratulations and good luck !

[Scottie]

Well... I'll disagree with the experts this time.

Did you know that there have been several studies that show that when people have too many choices, they tend to make no choice at all? A recent one I read about was a roadside stand selling different jams and jellies. They put out 8 types of jams... and 36% of the people who stopped to look made a purchase. Then they put out 22 types of jams and only 3% of browsers made a purchase!

It's analysis paralysis.

I don't see a problem with targeting your most popular product on it's own site as long as you are willing to build a strong site to support that product. It's much easier and generally more cost-effective to maintain one site, but if you feel you have a target market interested in buying this product and you can support a full site selling this narrow selection, I'd say try it.

[coldworld]

My advice here would be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

As Randy says, you have already got rankings and traffic on this site, and by moving the content you risk losing this in the short to mid term (or even longer if you use a brand new domain). Although 301 redirects let the search engines know the content now resides in a new place, it's not definate that the new domain will maintain rankings and trust in the search engines' eyes.

The key part to me is that you say you are building natural links from other sites. This is a great foundation for targetting your other terms! The stronger your link profile gets, the more chance you have of ranking for competitive terms and it sounds like you may be getting the right kind of link (i.e. relevant, natural editorial votes). Even if the links are pointing to internal product pages they will still boost the overall link profile of the domain.

Definately stay with one site!

[Jill]

Well... I'll disagree with the experts this time.

You aren't disagreeing with me. I wasn't saying to do it or not do it. I was trying to understand if/how it would make sense from the visitor perspective. As long as it does, then it's of course fine to do!

[noel_x99]

Are the products related? Do you have a good opportunity to cross-sell? That might be an argument for keeping the products together on one site.

[nahanni]

Are the products related? Do you have a good opportunity to cross-sell? That might be an argument for keeping the products together on one site.

Well, the 3 products are made from the same plant, and our idea has been to sell all 3 products directly from the new site. On the current site, we have had an affiliate program for 2 of these products; the 3rd one is a brand new product we haven't dealt with before.

[torka]

My day job company has a "niche" website for one family of products we sell (only one of our product lines).

The niche site goes more into depth on these particular (related) products, offering more information about them than what is available on our main site.

We still offer information on these products on the main site, and sell them through our main web store. After all, they are still our products. On the main site, we direct customers who want more information to the niche site, with appropriate links on all the applicable product pages to the appropriate niche site page(s).

On the niche site, we direct customers who want to buy the product to our main site, with links to the applicable product's purchase page. (We didn't want to set up a whole second store just for these few products, and we wanted to reinforce our overall company brand by routing all the sales through the "company store." As you're an affiliate, this won't make as much difference to you, I realize.)

I can see a lot of traffic flowing back and forth between the sites, and our stats show us customers who come to the store after visiting the niche site convert at a higher rate than those from many other referral sources.

The point is, as Jill and Scottie have said, if it makes sense for the customer for you to offer the additional information in a more targeted, focused way, then by all means go ahead and create the niche site.

You will potentially have some issues with the niche site not getting rankings at first, and it will require additional work to build traffic and rankings for two sites as opposed to one. So unless you can make a clear business and marketing case for creating the second site, you're probably better off with just expanding the one.

But if you can make the case for the niche site, and you're willing to put in the thought and planning and work involved in creating an effective niche site for these three products, it can be a successful strategy.

My

--Torka

[noel_x99]

Well, the 3 products are made from the same plant, and our idea has been to sell all 3 products directly from the new site. On the current site, we have had an affiliate program for 2 of these products; the 3rd one is a brand new product we haven't dealt with before.

My guess is that your customers won't know or care if the products are from the same plant. Would a customer that buys one of these products be interested in buying another? If you have the chance to use the good search results (and sales) from one product to also bolster the sales of a second product - that's a reason to keep them together.

But if one product is targeted at senior women and another product is targeted at teen boys - the fact that they are made in the same plant doesn't make a difference. While this is an extreme example of different audiences, it's an instance where separate sites targeted at separate audiences makes more sense.

[piskie]

Amazon !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nahanni]

Amazon !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uhhmm... care to expand on that a bit?

We have just found out there could be 5-10 more products available for us to sell. We have not yet decided to stay with current site or start a new one. I guess the more products we sell, the more it makes sense to have a separate site? On our current site, we do not sell directly, only doing affiliate stuff.

[piskie]

When Amazon first started, it was an online Bookstore.
Every 'New' product line or market sector has been incorporated into the one big site.
Each category cross feeds the other which appears to be a very successful formular, hence we didn't see Amazon new sites for CDs, Consumer Electronics and Photography etc etc as they have broadened their range of Market Sectors and Products.