Circle Marketing

Before I get into an explanation of Circle Marketing, I need to present some disclaimers. First, every search engine has its own complex set of algorithms to determine ranking position. The examples explained in this newsletter are extremely basic and for explanation purposes only, they do not apply to any specific search engine and this concept will not place your site at the top of all search engines.

Second, the chance that two web sites would have exactly the same weight of content on any particular search phrase is nearly impossible. Again, for the purpose of explanation only, we will assume in our examples that both example sites are properly optimized and contain the same amount of keywords because it allows us to demonstrate the concept.

Third, the Circle Marketing concept is not for everyone and may not be appropriate for your company. In this newsletter, we will address when Circle Marketing is a proper solution and how to implement it once we have explained the concept.

The Problem
For the sake of explanation, we will assume that MegaLaw.com is a web site for a large law firm that practices family law, corporate law and criminal law. The web site consists of 13 pages — a home page and 4 pages for each of its three sections.

MrAttorney.com is a four-page web site for a single lawyer practicing family law. Assuming that the content about family law in both sites is comparable, which site should rank higher?

The answer is MrAttorney.com. Why? Because even though both sites have comparable amounts of content about family law, MrAttorney.com's site is 100% about family law, while MegaLaw.com is only 33% about family law.

If MegaLaw.com were to add two pages to the family law section would it beat out MrAttorney.com? Yes because it would have more content, but unless it also adds two pages to each of its other divisions, it will lose ranking position under corporate law and criminal law since the site would have a higher percentage of content about family law than either of the other two divisions. And, to keep things even, they may have to add 10 pages to corporate law to rank higher under that term and 20 pages under criminal law — each addition changing the balance of site content.

The Circle Marketing Solution
So, let's say MegaLaw.com splits into three, different, distinctive sites, one for each of its three divisions. Each site would consist of four pages and each site would link to each other in case someone lands in the family law site only to realize they need a criminal lawyer (thus the term "Circle Marketing"). Now the MegaLaw.com family law site has four pages and is 100% about family law, just like the MrAttorney.com site. Which one would rank higher?

If you answered MegaLaw.com's family law site, you'd be correct. Why? Because the MegaLaw.com family law site has two other sites linking to it, thus giving it a slight edge over the MrAttorney.com site. The presence of additional links are referred to as "link popularity" and are a factor in most search engines' algorithms.

Now in order to make Circle Marketing work and not be considered spamming by the search engines, there are three criteria that must be met.

• First, each site must contain unique content and/or address different and unrelated markets.
• Second, each site must have its own unique domain name so you would have to buy multiple domain names.
• Finally, each site must have its own unique IP address. This means that you would have to pay for hosting of multiple sites.

Is Circle Marketing right for you?
As you can see from our description, there is more money involved in a Circle Marketing plan - multiple domain names, hosting, and site design/maintenance. So, your budget must be considered. But even if you have deep pockets, if you can't meet the first criteria of having unique content at each site, don't even consider it. Having multiple sites with similar content will not boost your rankings. First, it's like bidding against yourself at an auction for top position and second, if detected by the search engines, all your sites could be banned. Search engines will not ban sites that have unique content, but they consider duplicate content by the same site owner big time spamming.

Before plunging into a Circle Marketing plan, do your research. Go to a search engine like Google and enter each unique search term that is relevant to your company. Do not enter variations of the same thing (i.e. antistatic brushes vs. static control brushes). Each term should be unique and different such as soldering supplies, ESD products, tweezers, etc. Print out the first page of results for each term and compare them. Are there any of the same company coming up under each of your terms or are the results completely different? If the results are completely different, chances are a Circle Marketing program would be a sensible solution. If you are seeing the same companies coming up over and over again and they have the same domain name, then Circle Marketing is probably not going to work to your benefit.