One product - Many Topics Vs. One topic - Many products

[Hanuman]

Not sure if I have phrased the title clearly enough. I am curious how you go about a new site.

Option 1: I'll pick a 'product' - say "Quilting" and write multiple topics on this: 'how to quilt', 'best fabric for quilting', etc.

Option 2: I'll pick a topic - say "price of", and write about multiple 'products' - "Price of Cotton", "Price of Polyester", and so on.

I kind of sense that option 2 is a better strategy since,

1) It has a relatively broader scope and so I can write more
2) I can find what product is easy to rank and then probably focus more on them at the second stage of growth

However, with option 1, you tell Google the exact niche you are after, and can thus become an authority relatively faster.

Is that correct? How do you go about it?

 

[FitFatTony]

My opinion comes with the caveat that I am not a guru, just trying to understand this as well.
I would love to hear response from some of the more experienced and successful to weigh in on this question.

The title seems clear enough and you ask a question that Im sure most of us would consider.
While both options seem reasonable to have a on a site, with quality articles and reviews, this will quick turn into a lot of work.

Your one product many topics sounds more like a short term approach, whereas the second option sounds more long term.
Personally I ran myself into the ground mixing the both of them so have no experience finding a balance of the two - just yet. Look forward to hearing some other response.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Option 1 is better. It focuses you and your work, and creates topical authority for one subject where you can dominate. The Option 2 articles still fit within the category of Option 1.

But if you went after Option 2 exclusively you wouldn't be creating topical authority for much.

At the same time I say this, I do have a site that's being worked on under the philosophy of Option 2 and it's doing just fine, but I'm also way over qualified in terms of link metrics for the competition levels of the articles I'm publishing. I'm guaranteed more slam dunks this way. This works if you can build up the link power.

 

[bernard]

You should do both, or rather, understand how each topic has different types of searches to target.

In this case "quilting" as a general topic has several types of searches to target:

1. How to's
2. Quick answers
3. Product reviews
4. In depth guides
5. Discounts and price comparisons
etc
etc

If you go the affiliate method, you would base your site around Product Reviews usually and then back up that content with informational content.

Keeping the example of "quilting", if I google that, the first question that Google shows me is:

"What type of fabric is best for quilting?"

That's what you're going to target with a "Best fabric for quilting" post.

This post will have a "buyers guide" part, where you explain how to decide on which fabric to buy, and then a primary section "featured products", in which you recommend quilting fabric.

Someone landing on this page will then see the buyers guide and feel assured that you know what's up about quilting and then click on to the quilting fabric that you recommend (affiliate commissions).

If we only target "best product" type of content, Google is not going to like that too much, so instead we build a content silo around it.

That's why we go and hit the informational searches, which Google suggests:

"What is the difference between cotton and quilting cotton?"
"What is the difference between muslin and quilting cotton?"
"How can you tell quality of quilting fabric?"

Each of these pages link to the product review page, giving them topical authority.

We can also a price comparison page or combine it with the product reviews, but usually we can combine them into a:

"Discount codes for quilting cotton - get best price and offers" page.

This page will keep updated prices and discount codes using feeds and/or manually updated data. We will link this page to the product review page and vice versa.

To back this page with topical authority, we know focus on price focused informational content:

"Why is quilting fabric so expensive?"
"How much does a homemade quilt cost?"
"Can you make money selling quilts?"
"How much money can you make selling quilt patterns?"

Now, we're creating another content silo that is about price and we're linking those to our price comparison page.

And now we're also moving into another topical authority for the site "Making money selling quilting patterns".

We can repeat and keep going with this method so you can keep branching out topically.