Wow – long delay in responding. somehow I missed your comment, and only found it upon a long overdue revisit here. Anyhow – sub-domains vs dedicated primary domains…

By having sub-domains, you ultimately build up the depth of overall content associated with the primary domain, so there’s that to consider, given how important overall depth can be. But links from sub-domains aren’t truly “inbound”.

Since this article was about inbound link building, then In my experience, having stand-alone niche domains offers the most potential in terms of inbound link value.

Quick question – can you use subdomains of the main domain for niche sites or should they be separate top level domains?

Yes – the concept is similar. However Squidoo lenses and the like are at a serious disadvantage compared to my method.

On the one hand, one or more pages within Squidoo can themselves be a good source for linking – they carry the weight of the entire Squidoo domain.

On the other hand however, because I create entire multi-page stand-alone web sites, each dedicated domain can ultimately carry a great deal more relevant weight when it comes to how closely two or more entire sites relate to each other.

So while your single relevant page is more valuable from a linking perspective because it’s one of 900,000 pages (and thus the link from that page is considered to be coming from an “authority” site), it’s an extremely diluted link because it is only one page on the subject matter.

Of course, the cost involved with my approach can be far beyond what most people can afford or justify and that’s why having Squidoo lenses can definitely help as part of a much more cost conscious approach if a site’s budget requires that much constraint.

I first learned about SEO from Ed Dale and his 30 Day Challenge. They employ a similar system, but they use web 2.0 properties instead of creating their own mini-sites. They set up a money page, and then they create Squidoo lenses, HubPages, etc. with links pointing back to the money page. Over time the money page shoots up in the ranks. Seems like your approach is the same thing, but 10x’s larger.

You’re building a web of trustworthy sites and obviously Google (not to mention your client) appreciates your hard work and careful planning.

I found your article great and subscribed to your Search Marketing Answers blog as well. This gave me supreme tools to approach a client of mine. They are going to be excited.

In most cases the clients won’t be happy if the Niche site overtakes the main website, but there may be cases where they don’t mind.

Looking forward to your next article! Have a good weekend ;-)