URL Structure for Football Info Site

[Tim]

Hi,

I recently bought a solid domain with 'football' in the URL. My plan is to build out an informational site for NFL Football, NCAAF, and European Soccer.

What I am struggling with, is coming up with a clean URL structure that neatly divides the content between the 'American Football' and 'European Football' while remaining SEO friendly.

I see sites like wagertowin.co.uk only promoting Soccer and sites like Footballbetting.com only promoting Football. I would like to have plenty of content about both.

Open to thoughts, opinions, suggestions, etc. Thanks!

[Michael Martinez]

I would keep the URL structures as short as possible.

One option is to consider using sub-domains for each type of sport. So, for example, you could set up int.example.com and us.example.com as your sub-domains. The main site could mix news from both sports and drive traffic to each sub-domain, and each sub-domain could have its own unique design and content.

[Randy]

If the word "football" is in the domain, you could have a subfolder for "soccer" and another subfolder for "american." Doesn't sound like a big deal either using subfolders or subdomains.

[Prop]

Well first: if I owned the domain football.com - I'd make it all about the version played kicking a ball and never mention the American sport. But going only with the question asked, Randy's suggestion above I like best.

[Tim]

Well first: if I owned the domain football.com - I'd make it all about the version played kicking a ball and never mention the American sport. But going only with the question asked, Randy's suggestion above I like best.

Prop, that was one of my questions and the feedback is much appreciated. Do you have any specific reasons why you would stick to the EU version of the game? It does see like most of the keywordfootball and footballkeyword sites are focused on NFL.

[chaumi]

Think this is all a question of focus, time, and resources.

With any high level popular subject there are endless opportunities for content...and to deliver a valuable site that competes on a level (with existing authority sites) or delivers more than those sites you'll need to be in a position where you have full base content in place (or good potential and commitment to develop it), and the personal time or outsourcing structure in place to keep up with fresh news.

Taking football as a subject (English) you could probably sit down with a piece of paper and write 100 page headings in 10 minutes..and still have another 1000 falling out of that fairly easily from knowledge or research. Pretty much every day sees new content (with the number of matches played, changes in teams, league positions, cup runs etc etc (I know nothing about NFL but expect it's similar).

So the question is how much are you able to focus on the project. Building a site which covers all types of football is definitely possible, and there are obvious ways to structure a home page/site which gives you the options to branch out into each one (and maybe don't forget Aussie rules football as another subject)...but have you got the resources to be able to work that broadly and do it justice.

Narrowing the focus could still give you a great football site, and avoid the risk of overstretching yourself in various ways.

[Prop]

The crossover between the two sports is very small, and football (meaning soccer) might be in the top 10 ten list of most commonly known words on the planet. gambling, betting etc. those are English words, football (though sometimes with other spellings and accents) is the biggest sports term on the planet. Better internet access, online banking, ATM debit cards with international payment capabilities, these are features brand new in many places of the world where. This is a case where of the domain was footballball.com I'd run it for the sport soccer - and I'd register footballwizard.org or whatever was available and still do the American version for that (or probably not even - I'd do a general portal covering American sports targeting the US, not with football in the domain). My premium domain would be football (soccer) because the cross over between the two is very small. Of course I don't know the domain or idea - just saying in general is how I'd go about it.

[KevinMcC]

I would also focus either only on European football or American football. I think ranking for terms within both sports would be tougher than focusing on one sport. It is also pretty confusing having a site focus on two opposite sports, and you might even confuse Google. I know you want to take advantage of the keyword in your domain, but I think you'd be better off just focusing on the one.

[Michael Martinez]

It just occurred to me that a lot of search traffic for these sports would be driven by events, either games or news about the teams and athletes (or coaches, owners, and admins). I don't know how well news-related traffic converts but you could probably use a long tail approach to building traffic just by writing new content about current events. You don't have to work so hard for specific keywords that way.