Hello, please download and have a look at this user's manual. http://minisiteframework.com/_Mini_Site_Framework.pdf This is the user's manual for a new product I have created. I'm putting together my pitch page and whatnot right now, the product is under review at clickbank. So far I've been keeping it kind of quiet, but I'm having a dilemma, so I've decided to just start sharing as much info as I can. I have to learn how to pitch this thing. This product is not like anything on clickbank, and so far it seems to be confusing the people I show it to. I'm very unhappy about this, of course. I know I can go down into the scripting or design forums and find people who will understand the product, but that's really beside the point. I need some marketers to understand it, of course, if I'm ever going to get it sold. This product is targeted at a relatively narrow niche. It's targeted at webmasters, whether they are marketers or not, who are capable site designers, who design and host their own stuff (primarily) or are paid to design/host sites for others. Even more specifically, it's for someone who doesn't want, or enjoy, a WYSIWYG tool. If you don't use dreamweaver because it slows you down or creates code you don't like to read, we need to talk. If you are designing landers and you would like to end up with a mini-site instead of a single page (and still do less work) we need to talk. If you design/build/deploy mini sites , announcement pages, landers, etc... for other people, we really need to talk. I plan to be generous on my commercial licensing terms i.e. unlimited deployment for paying customers with purchase, no direct resale of the product is allowed but you can use it for every one of your customer sites if you want. I will also cross-promote if you wish. There is a huge aftermarket for this product. Properly templated, people who don't make websites will love the tiny, no database, interactive minisites you can create with this script. Once the product gets rolling, I plan to sell template packs as low-priced addons, some of which I hope to do as JV or cross-promotional products with designers. I'm going to point out some layout demos. These are not pretty, I know. at best, I'm a mediocre graphical designer. The point, however, is the layout, not my cheesy graphics. Here is what a default installation looks like, after it's been poplulated with some copy: http://default.minisiteframework.com/ There are no graphics in that design, except for the "sample photos" it's a 100% CSS layout. The next templates will give you an idea of the number of things you can do with this script: http://template1.minisiteframework.com/ (shows how the drop-ins are used to create decorative borders, serves no other purpose) http://template2.minisiteframework.com/ (shows the script configured as a "news site" with some urgent bulletins) http://template3.minisiteframework.com/ (shows the script configured as a faux blog) http://template4.minisiteframework.com/ (shows the site set up as a "brochure" style mini site) As you can see the script is about flexibility and saving time for the experienced webmaster/designer. Once the template packs start to roll out, it may become a great sale to newer web masters and beginning designers who just want to upload the site and add their content. So there you have it, and it's coming to market this week. Please, absolutely, share any feedback you have. If you have questions I'll try and answer them. If you're just completely boggled by what this is, don't bother to insult me over it please I will try and answer your questions if you care enough to ask.
thing is with minisites i just dont think they work no more, web users are more clever than they where 10 years ago. i think when it comes to selling a product users and customers need a better more interactive website than just a simple clickbank based mini sale page, looks like a good framework for beginners though.
What I see is a lot of people, I mean a LOT OF PEOPLE, still using landing pages. I can tell you for sure that if you create a 4-5 page site with a couple hundred words of content on each page you will get more loving from the search engines than you will with a 1500 word landing page. And when a user sees that they are at a site, not a page, they're less likely to rush for the back button. I'm not trying to say mini-sites are the wave of the future or revive any of that hype. But compared to a lander... I think every one is aware that there is a growing dislike for one-page landers in the search industry right now. And apparently a rapidly growing distaste for "blatant" affiliate landers and redirects in 'some' of the larger article sites. This will allow you to make a mini-funnel, if you know how to do that If you can write 1000 words of content and do a decent layout you can have a 3-5 page site that keeps your users interested, and also has much greater SEO potential. If you have no problem writing SEO friendly content, this thing is a goldmine. Here's a site that took me less than two hours to make, and that includes finding the graphics and hand writing all of the copy, you can estimate how long you would spend at that part for yourself: http://forexpower.info/ That site is running a default copy of this script, super simple layout. And look it's completely indexed: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:forexpower.info Indexed for some nice forex keywords, now I just need to target some products. Here's one that I customized, this took me almost 4 hours, starting with the default script. Again, that four hours includes writing the mediocre but original copy for the site and creating the theme/finding graphics as well: http://coolcanine.info/ And what does google think about this one? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:coolcanine.info Laps it right up. If I had created that forex site with cut/paste content, I could have made it in 15 minutes or less. Designing the completely custom theme and creating the buttons myself for the canine site took almost two hours, and it has more copy than the forex site. So again if I had cut and pasted vendor provided copy I could have done that site in well under three hours. A blatant little niche affiliate mall, but I get 8/10 quality scores for PPC and every page I add gets indexed quickly. You can just add authority/seo to your site by tossing in some articles or snippets of content and having them turned into full blown pages for you by the framework. Basically once you have designed your site, it's no problem to add, remove, or update the inline content, and creating a new page and directory on the server is just a matter of moments. It not only saves you time creating the site, but maintaining it as well. Globalized headers, footers, and easy inclusion of your analytics and other code across the entire site. I think it's the right time for a tool like this. I hope that the workflow is good enough for people who don't "need" it to want it. And thank you for the complement. As frameworks go, it's definitely "mini"
While I'm at it, I'll add a more powerful example. Here's a site I made using a two-tiered modification of this script. It's bigger than what the script was designed for, but I will eventually publish a tutorial on how to do this: http://failgames.info/ A gaming site / product mall, you can see that it is almost entirely bare of content. Nothing original here, a completely under construction site. What does google say? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:failgames.info&aq=f&oq=&aqi= MMM once I get some content and an actual arcade script in there, that one should do ok, too. EDIT: I came back for another. I think there is one actual article exchange article in this site. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=site:dailyscope.info&aq=f&oq=&aqi= Fully indexed Ghost site. 0 content and google has indexed three pages of results. Personally, I'm totally down with this "mini-site" thing.
So you got a bunch of ugly pages indexed in Google? Awesome. Mini sites are completely overrated anyway.
I love you dlm You always have a way of cutting through the matter at hand and finding something to make fun of. I look forward to your posts, and always get a laugh. It's like having an older, bitter Jack Nicholson stop in for a visit. It seems some people have problems getting their ugly pages indexed in google. I'm just sayin... What an honor if you actually checked out the product and made some sort of relevant comment. (hint, hint)
Fine. Fist off, how did you get the pages indexed (did you submit the sites anywhere or did it happen automatically)? I took a browse through the PDF - honestly, I think the product has potential. Personally, the PDF confused me greatly, but that's probably partly because I don't have the files on my computer to look at and explore. Keep in mind that I am reasonably competent with CSS/HTML and I would expect most of your users wont be, so I'd try to make things a little easier to understand. My main issue with the product is that I can't see why someone would choose it over Wordpress/Blogger/Joomla/etc. These scripts are all easy to use (at least at a basic level), are free, feature a bunch of add-ins and produce better looking sites (no offense) than your product. Maybe I'm missing the point, maybe your product is better than those for certain reasons - if that is the case, I'd love to hear why...and keep in mind you'll have to convince potential customers of that fact as well.
honestly the forex and canine sites were used for some PPC testing. Never submitted to any directory or search engine directly. Less than $100 budget. I think I wrote two forex articles after I first read pete's journal. go articles maybe (I'm not bothering to look it up). The arcade site and the astrology site have never been submitted or talked about anywhere except offline and mentioned here at DP. They didn't even have real content, and I didn't know they got indexed until today. They're basically parked concept sites for me. Never promoted at all.
As much as I'd love to take this product out for a spin, I don't really have the time at the moment. All I will say on the Wordpress comparison is as follows - these days, bandwidth is so cheap that unless you're making hundreds or thousands of websites, hosting a pile of traditional CMS-based sites is dirt cheap. Yes, those sites use a bunch of resources, but they also deliver extra features which developers (and visitors alike) enjoy. I think you will have trouble finding a market for your product - it's a good idea and probably useful to a bunch of people, but finding those people and convincing them to pay for it will be a challenge. This is probably something that would have been really valuable 5 years ago, but in this web 2.0 system filled with open source scripts (and where mini-sites aren't nearly as effective as they once were), I think it will be an uphill climb. As I said...there's potential here, but I'm also finding it difficult to figure out how you should go about marketing this system...
*sigh* Apparently, templates/plugins are going to be the way. Make it so that it requires zero understanding to use and then insure it's licensed in such a way that people are able to start selling live sites that run where a CMS won't for the kind of prices that cheap but professional wordpress templates currently sell for. I'm discouraged with that as a plan b, but I've been struggling with this for a couple of weeks now. I'm pushing through with this, it's my first product and having made that decision I'll get it out there, even if I have to learn how to properly leverage it after. I'm broke though so I think I might just create a nice little no-database autoblog or something unusual but useful and see if I can get that sold for $10 or $15 a pop. I'm open to suggestions. My next product will definitely be something that people are asking for. I started this as a tool for myself, and then decided to polish it to the point that it could become a product so in the end, it's all part of moving forward. I'll have it available for the people that want something like this, and perhaps at some point I'll find the right way to sell it. I'm not quitting yet, but I'm definitely considering candidates for plan b. Anybody looking for a php programmer? lol...