Want To Sell More Online? Think Small, Think Mini

When companies want to sell online, whether it be products or services and especially when the offering is large or diverse, there is a natural tendency to create large behemoth websites. Certainly if done correctly this is an excellent approach, but few people have the budget to do a 30 or more page website properly and so they end up with a massive underperforming monster.

Sometimes it's a problem with the visibility of the site, so it doesn't show up in searches and other times it's the navigation that's the issue, so people get lost and simply give-up.

But even with a fantastic large website, you might want to think about an alternative or additional option, which is to think small rather than big and invest in a number of mini sites.

The first problem is that as consumers we are all a bit lazy, so when presented with many options or just one, we will all prefer the simpler route. This is the fundamental principle behind the "mini-site" or what is also known as the "micro-site".

The second reason is that people are getting used to the vast amount of information available to them online and so they are getting better at searching for the very specific thing they are looking for. This works in your favour because you can simply present that specific information to them without the clutter of stuff that they are not interested in, which is not only more appealing to visitors, but also to the search engines and so it helps to increase your online visibility.

So how do you go about setting up a microsite?

Well it's not much different from a normal site, but instead of setting up one site you set up a number of them. Don't get me wrong, in most cases you will normally still need a company website, but you can take your product list or services and split them up into smaller parts. So let's say that you run a homeware shop. Instead of only having one site that sells everything, you can have a mini-site for kitchen knives, another for bakeware, another for cookware, etc.

The physical way of doing this is to register a domain name that is related to the specific items you are selling and then create a website design that is synergistic with your main website or other mini-sites. Finally add content and products that are very specific to the subject matter and ensure that you keep the page count as low as possible and the navigation as simple as possible too.

Of course you might be thinking that this all sounds more expensive than a single site and you would be right. You will end up spending more, however this is a proven technique for driving more traffic and business through your website. So small is sometimes great!