{"id":1355,"date":"2017-11-03T13:51:50","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T18:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bly.com\/blog\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2017-10-30T15:53:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T20:53:16","slug":"a-short-course-in-making-money-with-microsites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/online-marketing\/a-short-course-in-making-money-with-microsites\/","title":{"rendered":"A short course in making money with microsites"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “microsite” is a small website dedicated to selling a single
\nproduct, service, or offer.<\/p>\n

I am frequently asked, “Does each microsite need its own domain
\nname, or can I just make it an extension of my main domain name?”<\/p>\n

For instance, if your main site is www.jacksfoodsite.com and you
\nhave a separate microsite selling your healthy eating cookbook …<\/p>\n

… your domain could be an extension —
\nwww.jacksfoodsite.com\/cookbook — or a unique URL; e.g.,
\nwww.eathealthyfood.com.<\/p>\n

For my product microsites, each has a unique domain name.<\/p>\n

And an article in ClickZ (7\/26\/17) agrees with this domain
\nstrategy, saying:<\/p>\n

“As a general rule, a microsite should have its own dedicated
\ndomain or subdomain.<\/p>\n

“While it might be appealing for a microsite to be hosted on a
\nprimary brand domain for SEO purposes, and there are instances in
\nwhich this might make sense, more often than not, it’s best to
\nhost the microsite on a dedicated domain.<\/p>\n

“There are numerous reasons for this. For one, a dedicated domain
\nis typically easier to promote.”<\/p>\n

They point out that a dedicated domain such as cooldomain.com is
\neasier to remember and type in than brand.com\/microsites\/something.<\/p>\n

For instance, the domain for my microsite on how to write and
\nsell your first ebook is www.myveryfirstebook.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having an easy-to-remember dedicated domain is especially helpful
\nwhen someone asks me about one of my products, because I can
\ninstantly recall and tell them the site domain.<\/p>\n

Now, you may object, “But that means I have to buy a separate
\ndomain for every microsite I have and every product I sell!”<\/p>\n

Well, last time I looked, you can buy a domain name on
\nGoDaddy.com for an annual fee of around $12.<\/p>\n

Domain names are the real estate of the web.<\/p>\n

That means for $12, you can own a piece of real estate online
\nthat produces for you sales of $5,000 a year … $50,000 a year …
\neven $100,000 a year or more.<\/p>\n

Owning actual real estate doesn’t give you anywhere near that
\nkind of return most of the time.<\/p>\n

And having just spent $4,500 to fix problems at a rental property
\nwe own, I can tell you microsites are a lot less of a headache to
\nmanage than houses.<\/p>\n

To be fair, my best microsites make just thousands of dollars a
\nyear each — not $100,000 or $1 million or more like the big boys
\nof ecommerce do with their websites.<\/p>\n

But with dozens of sites each making a few thousand bucks a year,
\nmy little online info business makes me a nice spare-time annual
\nincome … in the six figures … with me “working” on it just a
\ncouple of hours a week.<\/p>\n

Another key to having a business with a lot of microsites is to
\nget a hosting service that allows you to host an unlimited number
\nof sites for one flat monthly fee.<\/p>\n

For instance, one hosting service is, on the surface, very cheap
\nat just $19 a month.<\/p>\n

But, it’s $19 per site. That’s OK if your business has one big
\nwebsite, as many do, such as my CPA and my attorney.<\/p>\n

My hosting service is more expensive at $49 a month — except, for
\nthat fee, I can host as many sites as I want at no extra charge.<\/p>\n

And with my 100 microsites, that means my hosting costs are less
\nthan half a dollar per site per month.<\/p>\n

Very affordable.<\/p>\n

One more tip…<\/p>\n

Your microsites should offer only one choice of action; e.g.,
\ndownload a free white paper or leave.<\/p>\n

Or buy the product or leave.<\/p>\n

Nothing else.<\/p>\n

No navigation … no links to other pages … no free content.<\/p>\n

If you have navigation on your squeeze pages for lead generation
\n… or on microsites for product sales … strip it off immediately.<\/p>\n

Then sit back and watch your conversion rates rise like bread
\ndough in a hot oven.<\/p>\n

And make more bread online!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A “microsite” is a small website dedicated to selling a single product, service, or offer. I am frequently asked, “Does each microsite need its own domain name, or can I just make it an extension of my main domain name?” For instance, if your main site is www.jacksfoodsite.com and you have a separate microsite selling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}