Mini Site or Content-based Web Site?
by Herman Drost
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Published on this site: January 2004 - See
more articles from this month

Are
you in a dilemma whether to create a mini site or a content-based web site for
your new product or service? The purpose of creating a web site should be to attract
visitors and convert them to paying customers. Is a mini site with a few pages
enough to do this or should you spend more time and create a content-based web
site which contains many pages?
Let's look at some of the Pros and Cons:
Mini
Sites
Pros
- Easy to set up - you don't have to be
a programmer these days to create a mini site. Web site templates or software
allow most of the work to be done already.
- Little time - you could
create a mini site within one day if you have your entire content ready to go.
- Laser
focused on selling one product or service - a mini site can simply be one long
sales page with an order button at the end.
- No distractions -
customers are distracted by other options on the web site. With no banners or
links to other sites, the customer can be directed to purchase immediately.
- Inexpensive
to create - if you use a free hosting account (not recommended), you would just
pay for registering a domain name. Paid hosting services for a mini site can be
acquired for only $30/year.
Cons
- Difficult for
search engines to spider - a web site containing many relevant pages of content
will tend to rank higher in the search engines than a one page mini site.
- Lacks
pages of content - mini sites often lack in-depth information about their product
or service.
- Difficult to increase link popularity - getting links
from other web sites increases your link popularity. Webmasters form other sites
want to link to a web site which contains valuable information that expands their
visitors experience.
- Less traffic - less pages means fewer chances
for people to find your site in the search engines, thereby limiting the amount
of traffic your web site receives.
Content-based web sites
Pros
-
Search engine friendly - creating a content-based page for every targeted keyword
will enable visitors to enter from numerous points within your site.
- Easy
to acquire links from other sites - webmasters want to link to web sites that
will expand their visitors experience by providing more information (ie articles)
or simplify their tasks (ie software).
- Become an authority on
your product or service - adding pages of content related to your product, helps
people to make an informative decision before purchasing.
- Lots
of traffic - creating lots of keyword focused pages and acquiring incoming and
outgoing links to and from other sites generates lots of free traffic.
Cons
-
Too many options - customers can become indecisive if their are too many options
to choose from.
- Too many links to other web sites - this may take
visitors away from your site and not return. Ideally you want to keep them at
your site.
- Can be expensive to build - content-based sites can
cost thousands of dollars to develop if you take into account the cost of graphics
and/or hiring someone to build it for you.
- Takes a lot of time
to develop the web site - building content-based pages takes time. It may take
several years to create hundreds of content-based pages.
- Attracts
"tire kickers" - visitors want to look around to glean free information
but may never buy.
Conclusion:
Before you decide on what
type of web site to develop, first think of the purpose of your site. If you just
need a sales page and want to drive targeted traffic to your site using paid advertising
(ie paid per click search engines, ezine ads) then a mini site could be sufficient.
If
you plan on becoming an authority on your product or service and want to attract
lots of free search engine traffic, then a content-based web site will serve you
better.
Alternatively, you may create a combination of the two ie begin
with a mini site, leaving room to expand it to a larger content-based
web site in the future.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com Affordable Web
Site Design and Low Cost Web Hosting Subscribe to his "Marketing
Tips" newsletter for more original articles. mailto:[email protected].
You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles


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