Is there a Right Approach for Small Site Structure - Newbie

[cjwntrsm]

Hi again, all

This is Chris in Orange County, Southern CA again. Thanks to all who waded through my sorry introduction! Leaving the baggage for a moment, I am a total newbie and dummy concerning anything to do with internet marketing.

Basically, what I envision is using maybe Wordpress or the new Blinkweb to try to get a presence out there for small static niche sites, could be a blog instead, or maybe even an authority site – whatever the structure approach I want SEO keyword optimization -- the approach to “Pages” (and or posts) will be geared to both general high competition words as well as specific long tail keyword phrases. I’m thinking of small affiliate sites. A little background info:

I’ve done a little preliminary homework and, yes with help (in spite of myself!), have a basic skeleton site set up on WP on Hostgator – without really understanding WP and with no pages written yet. I was following a course / approach called “static blogging” as I had initially thought – now not so sure – that a small silo structure would lend itself to the topics I have in mind. Every example I’ve seen of this approach (small niche sites which are static) though assumes the topics fit into a tight silo theme. For example, the Static Blogging course is geared to Dog Breeds, and the main pages are Large Breeds, Small Breeds, Miniature Breeds, with child pages broken down further into Great Dane under Large Breeds, etc. etc. Problem for me is that the topics I have in mind, while I could get some related pages like that, also have less related (though I feel pertinent) content I’d like to include. I’m not sure if what I want to do will fit to this Static Blogging approach. Seems like moving in the direction of an authority site would be better. But I really like the concept of being able to just get something small out there at first, and then growing it. Maybe a regular Wordpress Blog with categories and posts would lend itself better?

I guess my question is this: are there any hard and fast rules that dictate, well, this topic with the type of content to lay out “won’t work in a silo format”, “will only work in an authority site”, or some other kind of hybrid layout arrangement? I seem to be hung up on even getting started with conceiving the basic layout design because I don’t want to get it wrong! I can’t find other examples out there on the net that could fit. All the examples seem to assume the layout like the dog breeds. Problem is, some of the topics may indeed flow like that, but not all. I’m thinking that some sort of small WP growing blog (categories and posts to cover a whole range of related content) yet with some Pages which could be static? Maybe it wouldn’t be a “silo” or have any label on what it is. Something tells me to just start getting content out there, but I don’t want to mess this up! It should still be well laid out for SEO with the content Pages and / or posts also optimized in terms of title, keywords, etc. I know there are a myriad of ways to approach sites, but I’m just going in circles. I would love some advice as to how to proceed. I really want to have something small that might end up growing. Or maybe not.

Also, because of problems I've had with various wp plugins not uploading properly (finally done – I hope!), I’m looking for extreme "idiot proof" handholding. Instead of assuming this has to be done in WP, I checked out the new Blinkweb, and I’m wondering if Blinkweb might be an easier structure for me to get started. Any thoughts on Blinkweb? I’m even wondering if having a bunch of Squidoo Lenses for articles would be a way to go? So I’m sort of muddling and wondering – do I try to build this thing in WP, or some other way, but the root question is simply – what type of layout approach could be good for a newbie (WP or otherwise) who doesn’t have topics that fit a tight silo (yet who wants a small site, at least to start)? I’m really thinking that an attached blog to some kind of small “core site” could solve the problem, but I’d love to get confirmation, or other ideas, anything.

Well, I hope all this blather helps give a sense of how stuck I am -- I know I need to get started. Thank you so much for your help. Please take care,

Chris

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hello Chris,

We all start small.

I'm sorry that I can't give you advice on Blinkweb as I'm a huge fan of Wordpress and ArticleLive (the article section here on NPT is built on an ArticleLive CMS).

OK, let's back up a bit. Static and SEO don't normally go hand in hand. Search engines want dynamic sites, ergo the reason the blogs capture so much search engine traffic.

If you really want to have a static site that makes money, plan to use PPC to drive traffic to it.

But perhaps we need to clarify static?

"But I really like the concept of being able to just get something small out there at first, and then growing it. Maybe a regular Wordpress Blog with categories and posts would lend itself better? "

That's an example of a dynamic site and something that can be built out to an authority site.

Word of warning though - work on one site to completion (making good money) before starting another. They're lots of work, unless you have a team of writers.

So.... clear as mud?