Opinions of whether a site should be split?

[allthingsgifts]

Hi
My website sells gifts etc and I'm struggling to rank high for both gift keywords aswell as brand names etc, just by having the brand names as a category name isn't enough to get me to page 1 for all of them so was thinking about maybe transfering some of these products and starting a couple of mini sites which are focused on one brand. I assume i would need to pay to have protx setup on each site again plus the cost of the sites etc. but do you think this is worth doing or should I stick with what I've got? One keyword i'm struggling on is 'soft toys' i sell loads of soft toys but don't rank anywhere. Any ideas on how to rank high for lots of keywords would be much appreciated.
Regards
Lianne

[gibby]

I dont see doing a split helping at all.

Find someone who can help you with this or use a program IBP, the free version will do the job nicely.
It really helped us jump up to the 1st page but you do need to do some work

if you have the money get some help & there are some good guys on here to help

G

[allthingsgifts]

i was thinking about copying a whole category of products off my main site and adding them to another site which is just for that product range with a more specific url and content etc. Would google see this as duplicate content? If you look at hotbox.co.uk and firebox.com the sites are exactly the same would google see this as duplicate content?
Regards
Lianne

[new2bus]

If you are wanting to get Number1 with 'soft toys' I think you are aiming a bit high.

Not that it can't be done but If you think how many sites are selling soft toys or better still have a look in Google etc.

They are your competition. You really need to break 'soft toys' down to something more specific.

[Steve2507]

If you are wanting to get Number1 with 'soft toys' I think you are aiming a bit high.

Not that it can't be done but If you think how many sites are selling soft toys or better still have a look in Google etc.

They are your competition. You really need to break 'soft toys' down to something more specific.
I agree, the chances of you doing well for "soft toys" are very slim. Try looking for a longer keyphrase and go for that instead and you will then get some kickback from that if it includes the words soft toys.

Don't split the site as the more pages in a site the more content G has to chew over. If you are going to create a 2nd site remeber you have suddenly doubled your site promotion work.

[allthingsgifts]

ok, so if i don't split the site how do i target so many keywords both more general gift ones and brand products like Nici soft toys. Just by having a category called this isn't enough an i've tried getting links to the category but google doesn't pick it up in search results when you type in just NICI which is what people search for. There are only 3 websites stocking it! The same with doctor who, you can only have so many keywords in your header tag, which is why i thought of splitting the site into different product ranges so the content is more specific or am i on the wrong track and should only concentrate on a few keywords and not a lot.
Regards
Lianne