Most internet marketers will have one main website which will act as a sort of hub for their business. This is likely to be an informational site with blogs, videos and links to other related sites. To try to add new product offers on that website would be a bit of a clutter and the promotional information could very well get lost in the other items on the site. Your main business ventures should be dealt with elsewhere and this is where mini-sites come into the equation. By all means have a link to the new promotion displayed prominently on your main website but the actual detail should be on a ‘single-offer’ mini-site.
The mini-site will have a domain name and meta tags related to the one offer being promoted. When it comes to converting visitors to customers, mini-sites have an outstanding performance record when compared with larger and more complex websites. If your site promotion is good and well-focussed, the majority of visitors to the mini-site will arrive with a fairly good idea of what you are offering and, therefore, in a receptive frame of mind to the product or service you will put before them.
So, what are the main advantages of mini-sites?
First of all they can be generated very easily, very cheaply and very quickly. With the predominance of WordPress sites these days the actual cost of building the mini-site costs nothing and can be done by almost anyone; – no cost in having the site built for you. If you do need a little help getting the basics set up properly, you will find people out there on the internet who will install your WordPress site for the price of a couple of pints. If you choose your domain name carefully, the cost of that will be fairly nominal too. Time is money, they say, (whoever ‘they’ are) so a mini-site can be set up and operational with very little expenditure of either time or money.
Mini-sites have one purpose, to promote one specific item to encourage the visitor to make your “most wanted response”. This will be to take action in some way, which could be to sign up for a course, invest in a service you are offering or buying a product of some kind. The site must be very focussed and, unlike the main informational website, will consist primarily of a sales letter. The purpose of the site is clear to the visitor as there is nothing else on the website to confuse the issue.
It is also easy with a mini-site to deal with the matter of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). A single page promoting a single product or service on a single topic makes it much easier when it comes to keyword selection and the use of Meta Tags. With a bit of careful research it should be possible to quickly draw interested traffic to your mini-site; – more traffic = more sales = more profit.
It is still necessary to keep your main website active and interesting with regular blogs and issues likely to resonate with your visitors. This main site identifies you, in a sense, as well as being the ideal place to gather names and email addresses. This is best achieved by offering free reports, e-books, etc. in exchange for a visitor’s details. However, your products, your actual business transactions, should be done on mini-sites with one site for each product.