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You are a new online business owner, and the last thing that you need is one more decision to make. I’m sorry, but I have one more thing for you to consider: What should be the size of your first website?

There are two schools of thought on this issue and both have studies to support them. Obviously, if we automatically knew which was the preferred size, there wouldn’t be a choice to make.

Before I get into the advantages of each alternative, I should let you know what this decision is not. The question is not related to how large your business will ultimately become. Businesses that operate a number of tiny sites can grow as well as those that concentrate on one major “money site.” It also is not necessarily impacted your target niche. Both small sites and large sites can succeed in any niche.

I should alert you that reading this article will not automatically give you the right answer to this particular question of size. Instead, what I hope to provide is a set of some things for you to consider so that whether you build a small website immediately or lay the groundwork for a mega-site, you’ll understand that decision’s impact upon key variables now and in the future.

Small websites should be concentrated on a narrow sub-niche built around a cohesive, limited set of relatively long-tail keywords. Sites that are designed to become quite large eventually will develop most of their content in the same focused way, but they will also begin search engine optimization on the shorter, very high competition keywords at the same time.

The two approaches call for different models of long term growth, although both may begin largely concentrating upon a relatively narrow slice of the market. Businesses that begin with a large site as the eventual goal, with fully develop one small sub-niche, then gradually add new sections dedicated to other sub-niches onto their original site. Those who initially built a small site, with intention of always leaving it small, will take a “duplication of success” approach, as they gradually add more an more individual sites to their virtual empire of tiny websites. Thus with each new department in the mega-site model, there is a new set of search phrases upon which to focus. These sites are built upon what is often called the “silo” structure. As the large site grows to twenty departments or categories, the business with small sites might grow to twenty or more individual websites.

Positive cash flow can be established sooner with the small site approach. Part of this is due to the larger site having to invest resources in chasing the higher level keywords, which the mini-site is likely to ignore. In the long run however, over the course of many months or even years, the mega-sites can become competitive for the high traffic keywords and might even become recognized as an authority in the broadly based market.

Let me move now to some of the important practical matters that are impacted by your decision on this important matter.

One of these pertains to the amount that needs to be invested into the site itself in the beginning. Although you’re still beginning relatively small with the site that you plan to become large, the foundation for a larger site must be laid. That means that the site’s eventual architecture must be created and the systems put in place that will eventuall become necessary for operation. Thus, it is more expensive to begin such a site, even though you may start nearly as small as the mini-site business. Laying the foundation for silo sites is inherently costlier than the smaller, less expensive mini-site.

A second practical difference pertains to your approach to keywords. Any keyword research for a mini-site will be much more tightly focused upon the long-tail terms, especially those that show commercial intent (thus more likely to convert sooner rather than later). With the large site plan, you will conduct your research with two focal points: the lower competition but more targeted long-tails and the highest level, most competitive short tails (which are less likely to convert immediately, but the users of which might be nurtured into eventually becoming customers.

Issues pertaining to page rank is the third practical ramification of your large vs. small decision. Page rank is impacted by a number of variables in search engine algorithms (formulas), but one of those is the number of pages that a site has (assuming that the site has a search engine friendly linking structure). Consequently, it is easier for a large site to achieve a high page rank than for a small site, although you must remember that other variables are even more important in maximizing the total page rank.

So I hope I have given you some food for thought, even though I haven’t provided an actual answer for you. Perhaps, though, these ideas give you an inclination as to what you ought to do considering your own unique business circumstances.

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