IRL experience of how my SEO strategy differs between the 2 ππ½
β Content Strategy:
100-Page Site:
– Focus on topical relevancy & target keywords for traffic within 90 days
– Leverage long-tail, low-difficulty keywords.
– As you begin to rank and serve, start to build out content that targets more complex queries.
Million-Page Site:
– Utilize Search Console to manage duplicate content and enhance existing content efficiency before adding new pages.
– Do you need to delete or improve content? How many pieces generate very few clicks and impressions in GSC? Make a POA for those pages.
– Make sure content is crawled and indexed.
– New pages should be added to correct content silos or clusters, pages shouldn’t randomly be created.
π οΈ Technical SEO:
100-Page Site:
– Ensure quick page loads, internal links, and error-free crawling/indexing with SEO tools.
– Small sites are much easier to work on – you can use SEO tools to help you, content can be manually edited and optimized fairly quickly.
Million-Page Site:
– Optimize for crawling/indexing, manage Robots.txt and XML sitemap, and employ block internal linking via widgets.
– Example from NY Times is /sitemap/today – all of today’s latest articles can be accessed by GoogleBot, through a page that can be found in their footer.
π Backlinks:
100-Page Site:
– Active link-building through infographics, giveaways, and sponsorships is crucial due to limited natural link acquisition.
– A shiny infographic won’t rank on page 1, so you won’t get natural backlinks. You will have to invest in outreach.
Million-Page Site:
– Even crappy content or press releases can generate a whole bunch of backlinks (either through ranking on page 1, or being a newsworthy piece of content).
– Example, in the past 2 days Target have received hundreds of backlinks as they are closing stores due to theft.
π In Summary: There is no one-size-fits-all strategy:
Different sites, even with similar page counts, demand unique approaches (e.g., Adidas vs. Nike, Sainsbury’s vs Tesco etc).
My 5 cents (inflation happened) is to always keep learning, look at what other great sites are doing and keep an eye on your competition.
Whether itβs a 100 page website, or a million page website you want to make sure that your basics of SEO are always in order – if you have a solid technical and content foundation then you have the ingredients to build something great!