Hi everyone,
Just joined after being impressed by the quality of content on this site.
I'm a book author. In the coming year I will be publishing three books, and wonder about the best website strategy for them. Each book has a main theme - for example:
- one is about a place, like Hawaii, and has that place in the book title;
- another is about a time, like The Renaissance, and has that time in the book title;
- the other is about a philosophy, like Objective Idealism for example, and, again, includes that philosophy in the book title.
I have a hosting account that has a primary domain, and can host a few add-on domains in subfolders.
In terms of SEO - if I make the primary domain 'my-name.com" it could serve as the central page about me, the author, with descriptions of, and links to, each of the books. But no one is going to be searching for my name. I'm a nobody. Having "my-name.com" has zero SEO value. But people may be searching for the place, or the time, or the philosophy, in the book titles. So what if I register "my-name-book-title.com" for each book, set these as add-on domains to sub-folders in the hosting account, and make the website titles "My Name - Book Title", and of course the main heading on the page is the same "My Name - Book Title".
This way, I figure, the keywords in the book title get prominence, but in a natural, non-spammy, manner.
Does this sound like a good strategy?
One thing I wonder is how this plays off backlinks? On the one hand, it would permit me to make very specific backlinks with the keywords in related forums and discussions. On the other hand, that will dilute backlink density, since each points only to a specific book site.
OK - wait a minute.....
Either way, the structure is going to be the same. A root page about the author, with descriptions of, and links to, the individual books. Then sub-directories that contain each book's web page(s). So, there are lots of ways to address these sections with urls that contain all the same keywords:
author-name.com
author-name-book-title-1.com
author-name-book-title-2.com
author-name-book-title-3.com
OR
author-name.com
book-title-1.author-name.com
book-title-2.author-name.com
book-title-3.author-name.com
OR
author-name.com
author-name.com/book-title-1
author-name.com/book-title-2
author-name.com/book-title-3
So I guess the question I'm really asking is - is there any SEO advantage of one over the other?
Thanks for any help.
Update - Once framed in those terms, i found lots and lots of online articles about subdomain versus sub-directory structure for SEO.
Just joined after being impressed by the quality of content on this site.
I'm a book author. In the coming year I will be publishing three books, and wonder about the best website strategy for them. Each book has a main theme - for example:
- one is about a place, like Hawaii, and has that place in the book title;
- another is about a time, like The Renaissance, and has that time in the book title;
- the other is about a philosophy, like Objective Idealism for example, and, again, includes that philosophy in the book title.
I have a hosting account that has a primary domain, and can host a few add-on domains in subfolders.
In terms of SEO - if I make the primary domain 'my-name.com" it could serve as the central page about me, the author, with descriptions of, and links to, each of the books. But no one is going to be searching for my name. I'm a nobody. Having "my-name.com" has zero SEO value. But people may be searching for the place, or the time, or the philosophy, in the book titles. So what if I register "my-name-book-title.com" for each book, set these as add-on domains to sub-folders in the hosting account, and make the website titles "My Name - Book Title", and of course the main heading on the page is the same "My Name - Book Title".
This way, I figure, the keywords in the book title get prominence, but in a natural, non-spammy, manner.
Does this sound like a good strategy?
One thing I wonder is how this plays off backlinks? On the one hand, it would permit me to make very specific backlinks with the keywords in related forums and discussions. On the other hand, that will dilute backlink density, since each points only to a specific book site.
OK - wait a minute.....
Either way, the structure is going to be the same. A root page about the author, with descriptions of, and links to, the individual books. Then sub-directories that contain each book's web page(s). So, there are lots of ways to address these sections with urls that contain all the same keywords:
author-name.com
author-name-book-title-1.com
author-name-book-title-2.com
author-name-book-title-3.com
OR
author-name.com
book-title-1.author-name.com
book-title-2.author-name.com
book-title-3.author-name.com
OR
author-name.com
author-name.com/book-title-1
author-name.com/book-title-2
author-name.com/book-title-3
So I guess the question I'm really asking is - is there any SEO advantage of one over the other?
Thanks for any help.
Update - Once framed in those terms, i found lots and lots of online articles about subdomain versus sub-directory structure for SEO.