There has been some decent discussion about the value of Mini-Sites on a recent post at Domain Name Wire however I really want to challenge all the mini-site providers to step up to the game.
First, I want to say I commend all those who are providing mini-sites to people.
Basically, kudos for doing something while others do nothing however is the product actually worth the money? Some people agree with me, others don’t and some never say a word. Let’s get this straight – for the record I do not really care what anybody thinks personally about my opinions but I do care about the industry and how we look to end users, new investors and main street.
In 1999 I purchased some html software (hotdog) and started learning FrontPage and basically learned within a couple weeks all the code one would ever need to make what people are calling mini-sites today. It’s not hard and no one is reinventing the wheel with these products. Granted, my knowledge of programming, online marketing and development is probably far greater then many however it doesn’t mean we will not take advantage of new offerings in this industry even in the most basic formats such as mini-sites, if they are worthwhile.
There are many sides to the Mini-Site product.
Some say there are useless, others say they generate millions from having 1,000’s of these sites while others claim it’s a worthy investment for newbies.
Where am I?
First and foremost I believe they are sort of useless in their current formats but instead of ranting about why lets use facts
Most mini-sites look the same - AEIOU’s designs (are they not all the same … why not just copy the source code and insert your own images)
Original content – if produced in mass volumes how original can all the content be coming from the same writers? Believe me when I say Google penalizes for duplicate content across sites and although I’m certainly not claiming that anyone is not providing original content I do know the same 5 or 10 people who write content will eventually have things overlap. Domain owners need to write their own content – by doing so, you learn more about the industry and in turn, empower yourself as a domain owner even more.
Gateway to Laziness – I’ve said this a few times about mini-sites. Domain owners many times look at now what’s become a semi-pretty site and move on to the next since why would Google not want to rank your site high – After all, it looks so good. Have 500 domains … time to get moving and that mini-site that was put up yesterday will more often than not stay that way.
Enough points about what’s wrong. Just as people continue to pay $35 at network solutions for a domain people will still buy these mini-sites day after day so again, kudos to those who have the patience and dedication to provide such a product (and deal with customer service for margins so low – percentage wise they may be high but believe me how many designers will tell you working with clients that want to pay $200 is far worse than dealing with someone who pays you $5,000)
Now, For the challenge to mini-site providers
Do not take these words as offensive as the point is far greater than a simple criticism of your efforts to provide a product to domain owners but a challenge, an opportunity and an experienced opnion on how you can become better than all the rest overnight.
Why not step up to the plate and provide template(s) that empower the domain owners to build out networks for their industry targeted domains, provide widget power to help owners add functionality as they go or even forgo the html templates so commonly associated with mini-sites for custom wordpress themes where the owner has the power.
You see – a business plan for all the mini-site providers is the same across the board from what I see. Sell as many as you can for the one time fee and maybe hook a few clients for SEO marketing upon completion.
Hold up …. SEO tools are 10 times better with templates that offer plug-in compatibility and are poised to grow with the web so isn’t your business model failing even the simple fact of giving your clients a better product to prove your own SEO skills with.
It’s almost like the gold was seen by calculating the number of sites one could do in a week multiplied by how many clients and that’s it – that’s the plan.
SO much opportunity exists in the mini-site arena but the products need to exist. In a world of widgets, plug-ins and templates there should be an incredible product for domain owners born within a week of someone taking this article seriously and not focus on defending the mini-site industry in its current form.
Again, I’m for people doing well but also want product offerings to become representative of today’s tools – not new ones that are simply duplicates of work provided by others. In fact, why would you as a company owner want that? You can do more and you know it.
The best wordpress themes cost $300 max.
Custom designs range from $1,500 to $5,000 or more but these are end-user costs. Providers can build this for free and shit, built the greatest templates for SEO and mini-site building and charge the same mini-site fee ($2 or $300) – your money will still be tenfold of that one time customer who buys a custom theme.
Staying power is for those companies that build for the future not build for a few dollars today.
So, its not criticism here but a challenge – a challenge to providers to build products of value which use the tools of today and represent the power to expand tomorrow.
It would be great to hear from domain owners and mini-site providers about this since I truly want our generation of domainers to look less like spam and empower domain owners everywhere to have the tools to build businesses, not just a website.
Thoughts, criticism and even the odd curse is always welcome 
April 19th is the first day auctions start ending for our portfolio of over 3,000 GEO domain names in auction at SnapNames. We know 3,000 is a lot of domains so each and every day we will post the 250 or so in auction within the next 24 hours on the page below - auctions are each and every day until April 30th.
Mini-sites, SEO, keyword research and development is all the rage in the domain industry today but not often enough do we hear about hyphen domains for development value. I’ve blogged about the success of 
