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If you or you company are in the planning phase of a beginning online business venture, you are probably overwhelmed by the number of decisions that have to be make. One you should not fail to consider in your business plan has to do with website size. Should you build a small website, a mini-site in the beginning, with the plan of building a portfolio of such sites? Should you, alternatively, lay the foundation for a large website, although you would allow it to grow slowly?

I should stress that this issue is ultimately not related to the size that you want the business to ultimately become. Companies that follow either model can ultimately become quite large and successful. Neither should your decision be based upon some preconceived notion of your target market or your niche. Both small sites and large sites can succeed in any niche.

In other words, the answer to the question is not automatic, and I’ll warn you right now that I’m not going to recommend the “one magical size fits all” approach.

Small, mini-sites are focussed upon one narrow sub-niche. Generally, they concentrate upon dominating a relatively small number of keyword, often long-tailed phrases. Often the business model of such sites calls for the generation of traffic through means other than organic search engine optimization, although this is not always the case. Indeed, sometimes a mini-site becomes remarkably well optimized for those particular targeted keywords.

On the other hand, sites that begin with the ultimate design of growing very large are often focused simultaneously upon beginning with highly targeted long-tail keywords and also beginning to build a reputation for those shorter, high traffic search terms (the “parent” keywords, if you will). While the traffic model may begin with approaches other than organic search, the business will consciously focus from the beginning upon eventually relying increasingly upon traffic from organic search results.

The growth models of the two are very different after each has satisfactorily mastered the beginning, narrow sub-niche. Those who have taken the mini-site approach, will begin to duplicate their success by building a new, small site in another sub-niche with a new set of long-tailed keywords. Large site businesses will instead build another section onto their growing original site. This new section, over time, is joined by others (think of new departments being added to a sporting goods store, for example). Each new section takes on a new sub-niche. 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. This is partly due to such a business not investing resources into those most competitive, high level keywords. Conversely, the silo sites will take longer to mature, but they can eventually become competitive for the top level keywords as they simultaneously enter the fray for the more tightly targeted words and phrases. Eventually, the silo site might become recognized as an authority in the broader niche.

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

The first has to do with start up cost. When you plan to build a large site, the architecture of the whole site (as it will eventually become) must be in place. Thus, it is more expensive to begin such a site, even though you may start nearly as small as the mini-site business. Mini-sites are much less expensive to build than it is to build the foundation for a larger business site.

The ways in which you think about your keywords is another important difference. Your 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.

The last practical ramification has to do with page rank. 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). Thus, it is more difficult to achieve a high page rank than it is for a large site because of its inherent value on that variable.

I trust that I have given you some things to think about and apply to your unique business situation, even though I have not given you any clear cut final decision with respect to which alternative is the best option for you.

Related posts:

1. Large Website or Smaller Website for Your Online Business?
2. Large or Small Website for Your Online Business?
3. Large Website or Small Website for Your Company’s New Business?
4. So You’ve Selected the Mini-Site Format for Your Business
5. A Business Website: Purposes of the Home Page