I'm not quite sure I understand this whole idea of "mini-sites"

[TheShortStack]

I've been chatting to a few members on here about the concept of "mini-sites" and I'm just not sure I quite understand them.

As I understood it, the idea is to buy up domains of popular search terms to provide highly targetted sites consisting of around about 20 pages in an attempt to drive sales.

Now, a couple of you have been nice enough to show me a couple of examples of your mini sites, and what I don't understand is that the domains don't generally tend to use any targetted keywords (other than the occasional brand term, which the majority of poker rooms won't allow you to use anyway).

So I guess my question is, what makes a mini site a mini site? If you're targetting keywords in your content (rather than your domain), why not just put this content on to one of your larger sites and re-direct your traffic there.

Any thoughts, comments or examples greatly appreciated!

[DealerDan]

To me - a mini-site is like a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'm type of site. You don't provide anything extra - you provide exactly what the searcher is looking for and no more, building content specifically around those targeted keywords. I'm not sure about the domain part, but that's something I always do with my mini-sites is make sure I have a keyword rich domain - ie: nbatips.net, buydvdsforsale.com

[Trikkur]

Dealer Dan's explantion is pretty much in line with what I think as well. You build a mini site for a specific keyword or a few keywords. You don't really ever look to expand past that. You just want to rank for whatever keyword you think makes money then let it sit.

They aren't going to make you a fortune, but they are faster to build and if you find a golden niche you can bring in some decent money. Most of them I've build have failed, but one of them brings me in ~$2500 a month, which makes up for the failures imo.

[DealerDan]

Yeah and while you're not going to get as many unique visitors as a mega site, theoretically your conversion rate will be higher percentage wise.

[pokerprop]

Was just about to type that, I've build mini sites strictly for conversion purposes many times.

[TheShortStack]

Thanks for the feedback guys

Was just about to type that, I've build mini sites strictly for conversion purposes many times.

When you build those sites though prop, are they on heavily keyworded domains? Or are you relying on the keywords to be in the content instead?

[NickM]

Domains definitely help (a lot in some cases), but content, as they say, is king. Always go for direct match tld's if possible.

[Ozpoker]

to me a mini site would be on a domain like "pokerstarsmarketingcode.com" - obviously u ain't gunna have anything else there but the code and a review

[pokerprop]

Thanks for the feedback guys



When you build those sites though prop, are they on heavily keyworded domains? Or are you relying on the keywords to be in the content instead?

It depends, mini sites don't have to just be for SEO. A lot of times there used for conversion. For example sometimes Dell sends out ads about a sale and you got to a separate site of theres all about the sale and details about the products in the sale etc. Maybe this is a bad example. Another example (can't find the link) was Bodog tournament leaderboard mini site. This site was low text and not that good of SEO, but was a good match for the TLB banner adds.

Its often easier to direct focus and go for conversions on a site where all the pages relate to the same topic and all pages have revolving backdoors leading a person back to the main selling point.

Of course SEO wise there is a lot of benefit as well and this doesn't have to be about leveraging someone elses brand terms. Look at wizard of odds for example: this is a big site that pretty much markets only Bodog. Now there site is not about this so it doesn't quite relate. But imagine you liked this idea and decided to SEO a bunch of terms and all tie them into why Bodog is the best site. Well you could SEO online blackjack, online craps etc. and tie it all into the main theme, and then have the home page explain why Bodog is best and use a domain like bestcasinoinworld.com. This is not what everyone calls a mini site, some call mini site as like super mini (few pages). to me its a small site that is 15-40 pages that doesn't ever really need to be updated again (just small updates when content becomes stale) that is designed with one specific purpose. In my example: convert players to Bodog.

We could SEO these all on one big site and give players tons of choices, like Best Craps (a room) best blackjack (list another room) and make it expandable content: news, comics, gossip, videos, strategy etc. The difference between a site like this and a mini site is too many choices leads to confusion and the visitor is more apt to go off searching. Don't get me wrong though, big sites are so important to build for long term strategy for many reasons: repeat visitors, aged in google, authoritative, more likely to be linked to, more chance of multiple conversions on same player, etc etc. Not saying one is better than the other, just that the purpose of mini sites are one: with it most often (in this niche) being to convert players to one specific site.

[Mark]

An interesting post today on SEOmoz about Mini-sites or Micro-sites and why Micro-sites are sometimes used ineffectively..

SEOmoz | Whiteboard Friday - The Microsite Mistake

Mark