SEO Samba official SEO blog

Marketing satellite SEO websites is a valuable SEO tactic that can be used in a number of situations. It can allow for intensive positioning of a select group of competitive keyword phrases that would be impossible to effectively position within the main site. It can also overcome many of the problems presented by sites that use extensive Flash or database-driven content, and give more control over indexation and rankings.

The satellite websites or “mini-site” concept, therefore, is gaining ground as effective sales channels. But it faces three major problems in order to drive a critical number of search engine referrals. Specifically, satellite websites lack content, keywords and linkage. Coincidentally, these are three of the most wanted items on search engines’ checklists. But for those who know the ropes, building a universe of satellite websites can result in powerful brand vehicles and marketing tools.

Content is the key
No matter how cutting edge and well rounded your mini-site is, if you don’t offer original, up-to-date content, visitors will vanish. Your traffic will stay low and your rankings will follow suit. But even by simply broadcasting a small part of your staff’s combined knowledge you will provide useful information and gain opportunities to disseminate selected keywords within your content, reinforcing your chances of top ranking. Copywriting services, information swapping, content aggregation and email marketing will complement your content offering and provide you with a great platform for your industry, market, services or products.

Keyword concentration
Mini-sites, much more specific in scope, should be entirely built around a few efficient and related keywords, articulating a consistent theme throughout its few pages. Industry-oriented or informational sites are ideal candidates, as they can branch out to products or services presented on your main website. The main difference with larger sites is that mini-sites address a much more targeted niche. But they require going through the same optimization process as bigger sites, only on a much smaller scale, at least initially.

Link popularity
As you may know by now, a decisive factor in search engine positioning is the number of links pointing to you. For out-of-the-box satellite sites, this can be accomplished by first referencing the site in directories using fee-based submissions. However, the ideal situation is to have search engines find you, not the other way around. A link from a well-established site, even in an unrelated business, will do the trick for initial indexation.

Once your homepage makes it into the index – Google is fastest at this game – other pages will follow suit. In turn, optimized pages will generate top listings and traffic referrals. As a result, you will get many prominent links coming from well-known sites. Of course, as you build multiple properties, all of them will cross-link using appropriate keywords. Each page referenced in a search engine is an additional link. After a few months your site will be ranked as reasonably popular. In turn, it will be used as a launching pad for new networked sites and help search engines understand what niche they’re catering to.

Creating theme-based satellites or mini-sites can add great value to your existing presence by offering specific content to a more targeted audience. It is a cost-effective way to address precise market segments, enhancing both customer relationships and brand awareness while generating qualified sales referrals. It is also an excellent way of building business continuity into your online operations and more control over your search engine traffic.

In short, to take control of your SEO universe on any kind of scale, tools are needed to keep content fresh and cross-links updated while avoiding costly pitfalls such as same server or C-class hosting and many others. The more sites you have, the more critical the system is.

Obviously, here I’d recommend using SEO Samba for this. SEO Samba is an excellent vehicle to develop and manage online properties and satellites by making it very efficient to maintain a large number of optimized sites over time.