Yesterday, I wrote a couple of articles giving updates on my mini sites that were built by Wanna Develop and Big Ticket Domains a year ago. Over the last year, I’ve worked with a few mini site development providers and built my own mini sites, and I want to share some tips and advice based on my experience.

• Mini sites may not make a lot of money, but they can be good traffic producers

• A mini site can help get a domain name get ranked in the search engines, which is beneficial to a potential buyer (or the current owner) looking to avoid the typical sandboxing that comes with newly developed websites once the mini site is turned into a comprehensive website.

• With the traffic some can bring in, lead generation might be a higher paying option than Adsense.

• If you can learn enough coding to enable yourself to work with a WordPress or static html template and use it for various sites, you will save money on many templates (if you have the time). You can use services like TextBroker.com or eLance to find good writers, and sites like Flickr can be a source of free-to-use images.

• If you don’t have the time (or desire) it may be worth your effort to build some of these mini sites on names you haven’t successfully monetized with PPC and/or you don’t have the time/desire/funding to build a big site/

• There are several companies out there that can build you similar mini sites. If you don’t want to do it on your own, test the various services and choose a provider that meets your needs (price, time, personality…etc).

This year, I haven’t done much more with mini sites (aside from a Epik site on BumperProtectors.com). I think this is more a result of buying higher value domain names that are quickly selling than buying the less expensive names I invested in during last year’s tougher times. I am sitting on less new inventory this year than I was before, and I have been focusing on growing my revenue-generating websites.

While providing mini site updates, I figured I would provide an update on CabCompanies.com, another mini site I launched last year.  I bought CabCompanies.com on Snapnames in August of last year, and I used the services of Kevin Leto from Big Ticket Domains to build a database driven “mini site” with cab companies listed from around the US.

I believe I paid around $65 for the domain name, and I paid an additional $250 for the website, which includes the graphics, data, and the Adsense placement. Kevin has also been good about adding listings when companies have contacted me during the past year asking for a listing.

From October 12, 2009 to today:
Total Traffic: 2,853 visitors
Average Monthly Traffic: 238 visitors

Approximate revenue: Between $100 – $150 in revenue. It has also earned a bit more revenue from paid listings I added.

I think this is a great success for a couple primary reasons.

First, it’s earned somewhere in the ballpark of a 50% return on the development costs in a year. I believe I got a good deal on the domain name, but it wouldn’t have made much (if anything) as a parked domain name this year. The revenue isn’t much in the scheme of things, but if it can make $100 with no effort, it can certainly earn much more with added content and promotion.

Second, it’s set me up to where I could legitimately sell listings like I do on DogWalker.com, since traffic has been good without any publicity, link building, or other traffic driving tactics. If I was inclined to do more work, I could begin to offer upgraded listings with coupons, website links, email addresses…etc. Right now, I am not inclined to take on additional work.

I could also probably change tactics and sell leads instead of doing a database listing site – or I could add a lead gen form to each page and sell leads in an automated fashion.

One of my friends and colleagues runs a successful airport car service referral website, and he’s going to be the first person I email about this. Perhaps he’d be interested in buying the site to better monetize it since he’s already got the infrastructure in place.

In September of 2009, I wrote about the development of four websites, using Mike Cohen’s WannaDevelop.com for the project. Almost everything I do with my business is either a test or is in response to a test I’ve done, and I want to share the results of this test. Cohen’s company developed DubrovnikVacations.com, JerusalemVacations.com, EasternCaribbean.com, and ParabolicSkis.com.

Since the first article, I sold EasternCaribbean.com and ParabolicSkis.com, so those traffic results are not included below. The two sites I still own did not receive much (if any) traffic before development. I also only used one Adsense code for the two sites, so the revenue number is combined for both. The results from the last 12 months (October, 2009 – October, 2010) are below, although per Adsense TOS, I am not posting the number of clicks or the exact revenue number.

DubrovnikVacations.com
Total Traffic: 1,467 visitors
Average Monthly Traffic: 122 visitors

JerusalemVacations.com
Total Traffic: 1,423 visitors
Average Monthly Traffic: 119 visitors

Approximate Total Revenue (can’t disclose exact # due to Adsense TOS): $70 – $90

As you saw from the initial article, the cost was $99 per 5-page mini site, and I did not add additional content . I also didn’t do any testing of Adsense placement, which would have been smart had this been a bigger or more important test for better domain names.  The total revenue also includes a couple months with EasternCaribbean.com, which ParabolicSkis.com was never monetized.

All in all, I think the traffic numbers are pretty decent considering that traffic was non-existent at the start. Could I have done more with these two domain names? Of course, but they would have been at the bottom of my development list and probably would have earned nothing. I could also convert these into more comprehensive sites, but I will probably wait for a buyer to come around.

Did I yield a good return on this $200 investment (not considering the price of the names)? I think I had a decent first year return since I didn’t spend money promoting the sites, although the revenue has not yet paid for the development. The % return is strong compared to the stock market, but of course stock investments are liquid where you can get your initial investment back and I don’t know if i could get my investment back.

Later on I will post some advice about mini site development that I’ve learned over the past year. I’ve tested several different providers and done some on my own, so I think I may be able to offer some insight.

“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.
Know when to walk away, know when to run.
You never count your money, when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’, when the dealin’s done.”

I saw Rick Latona’s post today about his company exiting the mini site space, and I immediately thought of Kenny Rogers’ 1978 song, The Gambler. Rick’s company, AEIOU.com, has decided to exit the mini site development space, citing the lack of profitability, “The reality is there is no money in web design.” Although I disagree with what Rick said about web design because I know people who do quite well, I believe he has much bigger fish to fry, and I can commiserate with that decision.

I spent some time building my own mini sites, and although it’s enjoyable to see a project completed on a good domain name I own, the reality is that they often aren’t worth my time and effort. Like Rick, I have bigger fish to fry. When I have started new mini site projects, friends have told me I should focus my efforts on my bigger projects (Torah.com, Burbank.com, Lowell.com…etc), but for me, it was more of a learning experience than anything.

The mini sites I built are earning more money than when they were parked, and instead of having them sit idly, they have pages indexed in Google. However, in retrospect, they weren’t really worth my time and effort, since that time could have been better spent doing other things that are more profitable (researching, buying, and selling domain names for example). Chalk it up to a learning experience I can have as a full time domain investor.

Anyhow, like the Kenny Rogers song, it’s important to know when you’re taking time away from profitable endeavors and doing something that isn’t going to help your bottom line, it’s time to throw in the towel. I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel on developing mini sites on my own to save money, and there would have to be a compelling reason to do another one since my lesson has been learned.

As you know, I like to build mini sites on my own. It’s probably a big waste of my time to spend a few hours on a mini site that will yield only a little revenue, but I like to build them nonetheless. I suppose that’s one of the nice things about working for myself. It’s probably more cost effective to purchase a website from one of my advertisers, but I enjoy the building process and feel a sense of accomplishment when I finish, so I will probably continue doing them every so often.

That said, I really like ThemeForest.net, which is a website where you can find professional templates in a variety of formats (HTML, Joomla, WordPress, Flash…etc. Depending on your skill and comfort level with development, there is a template for just about everyone. Personally, I prefer the html templates for mini sites, since WP isn’t great just out of the box for SEO and I am not great with the tech stuff to make changes.

Below are a few html templates that I like and will use in forthcoming development projects. They aren’t free, but they are pretty cheap/inexpensive despite looking like an expensive custom template.

Blue Glow Site Template – I like big pictures that rotate because they’re engaging to the visitor. I would probably put 2 large Adsense blocks on the left side – probably one image block and one link block. I will probably use this one for my next mini site.

Furniture Shopping Theme - This one looks like it would be good for an e-commerce site – maybe even a place to sell domain names. It comes in a variety of colors.

Lovely Print Business Template – The simplicity of the layout is what I like. You have a great picture spot taking center stage, but you can also still see the content below, helping with the CTR to your back pages that are filled with more content.

Dark – The color and layout of this make it very cool. You can have a lot of content on the home page, and there is plenty of space for Adsense or other links. Colors really pop on the black background, and it’s very different than most sites.

BlueLight – Many people are now familiar with this because it was created by my web designer and I’ve used it on several of my minisites, including UniqueInk.com and AthensVacations.com.

Multi-Colored Business Theme – This is a very simple design, which is great for a mini site. There is little hassle required to make changes, and it’s very easy to make the simple tweaks. Several colors from which to choose.

Clean Business Template – Less graphics to worry about and no logo in the header necessary. This is as simple as it gets and is ready for you to plug in your content.

I recommend looking at the live samples for all of these themes before you decide to buy. Check out each of the template pages to make sure the back pages are formatted in a way that you like. For some templates, I only use two or three of the template pages because the other pages aren’t set up in a way that is useful to me.

Be mindful of your revenue objectives for the site, and determine how you can integrate your revenue-generation tactics. Think about where you will put Adsense blocks, banner advertisements (for affiliate links and direct sales), and how you can add shopping widgets and other ecommerce functionality.