One way to earn online cash is with one page mini-sites. A mini-site is, of course, a site with just a few pages. In this case we’re going to look at sites that have only one primary page that sells a product or acts as an affiliate site for a product or products. While there may be some additional web pages to support the site, the emphasis is on a single page. There are several different models you can use and I’ll briefly go over them here. Also, I’ve got a free mini-site template that I’ve giving away.

Digital Product Sales Mini-Sites

These are the sites that you see selling eBooks and software. This is the format I use for my Blog Content Wizard site and other sites that use scripts like the Seven Dollar Script. These sites usually consist of a long page promoting the product in big splashy fonts and eCover graphics. There will sometimes videos, testimonials and other things to promote the product. And let’s not forget the all important order button!

I won’t go over the specifics of this kind of mini-site but, once again, I’ll direct you to Dave’s sales page design system. Dave is quite good at designing these sales pages and his eBook has some very good tips.

Other pages on the site might include a disclaimer or policies page, an affiliates information page or an about page. However, there is generally only one primary page and it’s focused totally on selling the product at hand. The links to secondary pages are buried in the footer. There will also be back end supporting pages for one-time-offers and the like as well as order confirmation and download pages but these won’t be seen except by buyers.

Product Review Mini-Sites

This kind of site is setup to get affiliate sales for a particular set of products. Most often you’ll find these sites reviewing Clickbank products because they’re the most lucrative although this same method can be used with physical products from eBay, Amazon, Commission Junction and others.

The way this works is that you select 3 to 5 products that are related and write a 2-4 paragraph review of each, describing pro and cons of each product. It may help to use a 1 to 5 stars graphic for your overall opinion. Of course, your reviews may be made up or borrowed by mashing together others’ opinions. The important thing though is to have the product that will earn you the highest commission in the first slot as the ‘best’ product and then work them on down to the lowest commission. After all, isn’t the product with the highest commission the best one for you?

Another variation on the review site is a really bogus one that you see crop up whenever a big Clickbank Internet marketing product is released. You’ll see mini-sites targeting keywords like “Google Mauler Scam” trying to bring in curious potential buyers and direct them toward their affiliate link. I suppose this works but generally there’s a huge amount of competition chasing what may be a small pool of money so unless you can get a site to rank well, don’t expect much.

One clever variation on the review site that I’ve seen recently is one where a person does a screen capture video of themselves actually using the product and describing what they like and dislike about it. How well will this convert? I don’t know. However, it shows visitors that you actually have to product and put it to use which increases the credibility of the site.

These sites should also have additional minor pages such as an About or Policies page to round the site out in the robotic eyes of Google and to add credibility to the site for human visitors.

Informational Mini-Sites

The informational mini-site is kind of like a niche marketing blog except it’s only one, keyword rich, targeted article. It can be monetized with Adsense, eBay, Amazon, CJ or other affiliate offers. Which method to select depends on the type of product will be the most lucrative for your targeted keywords. For example, a domain on ‘Iowa Divorce Lawyers’ would obviously be Adsense while one on ‘Replica Tiffany Lamps’ would be eBay.

While blogs have some advantages, such as easier link building via commenting and RSS feeds, the informational mini-site is quick and easy to create. Since it’s HTML only with no database or server site code to process, it has a very small footprint, unlike a blog that can really eat up processing power on a server.

I’ve found these sites to be an effective way to get something up quickly on pre-owned domains I’ve purchased and thus getting the domain indexed by Google at the root level along with an About and Policies page.

Other Mini-Site Types

There are some other one page mini-site types around, such a viral mini-sites, but I’ll cover them later. I’ve gone on long enough here, don’t you think?

My Mini-Site Template

As promised, here’s my mini-site template. You can view the demo site here and download it here. In addition to some basic graphics, the accompanying stylesheet has styles for doing highlighting, Adsense blocks, testimonial boxes and coupon boxes. If you have any questions about the template, feel free to ask.

I hope this has given you a good overview of how to earn online cash with one-page mini-sites.

Frank Carr December 13th, 2008 Niche Marketing

Niche Marketing
$7 script, digital products, download, informational sites, mini-site, product review sites, template