I was recently taking stock of my current inventory of made for PPC sites. I looked at old sites, what we are currently working on, and what we have planned for the future. As far as sites created for the sole purpose of capturing PPC traffic to affiliate offers, I can honestly say the mini-sites we know and love are dead.
History
First a little PPC history. In 2005 and before you actually could slap up a single page landing page and do well with PPC to affiliate offers. Then when quality score started really developing and being enforced in early 2006, everyone started making the typical 5 page mini site with an article page, contact page, about page, privacy policy, and site map. These “mini-sites” as we called them we basically just an attempt to boost quality scores. They worked great for a while too. The problem is, they don’t work anymore. Google, and now even Yahoo and MSN can see right through these sites. Based on the quality scores they are assigning to this type of content, they seem to classify them as thin affiliate site. You may have some mini-sites still running and doing well (I know I do, knock on wood), but eventually their days are numbered. And going forward, I wouldn’t even try building a new mini-site for PPC purposes.
Destination sites
So where I do I see the current/future status of PPC landing sites? All of the new offers that we have been trying this year are built around what I call full destination sites. Basically you can think of the standard mini site described above, but increase that about 10 times. Articles, interactive content, dynamic content, and video even are now on these sites. This is in addition to the actual landing pages of course (that content is not on the LP). I’m also talking real unique content, not scraped wikipedia junk. Ideally, I also like to have most of the site indexed on all 3 search engines before starting the PPC campaigns for good quality score.
Negatives
The downside of course, is the time, effort and money it takes to build out these sites. You have to plan ahead to put real work into building a solid site.
Positives
The added benefit of building these destination sites, is that you are setting yourself up well for organic traffic down the road. This is a huge benefit when the offer eventually expires. You can also use the non-landing page sections of the site for extra revenue with other related offers, email/newsletter list building, or even things like Ebay affiliate or Chitika stuff. The site also builds residual value as a standalone website, unlike single landing pages which are pretty much worthless when the traffic stops flowing.
So beware when you read some of these older guides or ebooks telling you to build a mini site for PPC. To me, that is a 2006 idea and it usually won’t cut it in mid 2008.
I couldn’t agree more; click-brokering is dead. In fact, I received a take down notice from Google recently in regards to one of my mini-sites.
Mini sites have a short shelf life. It may still be a way for you to test a niche, but don’t expect it to last. I don’t think Yahoo and Microsoft are as concerned about mini sites as Google. I still have several mini sites up and running on these two search engines.
I think this is a positive change… Rather than focusing exclusively on PPC, this is going to force many affiliates to actually become site owners/builders. Creating a destination site is a better long term plan and helps you build traffic from multiple source, rather than relying on Google for life support.
So how are you supposed to test offers? How will you know what converts? After building a 100-page unique content site?
In addition, these content sites, in my opinion, lead to customer “wandering”. How do you keep them focused?
Google certainly seems to have a great disdain for affiliate marketers - considering they are one of Googles best customers.
Testing is the first step which can be simpler - direct linking or quick hops. This more about once you know you are moving forward in a niche.
The landing pages are still super focused, but if someone slips off the landing page on to the main site you still have a great chance to convert them on something else. It’s all about bringing them into the sales funnel.
I’ve been focusing on this as well. And the “time” issue, like you said, is the hardest part. I will get motivated in the beginning and throw a site together with a blog, and will have intentions to update every other day or daily… but a week or two later, I lose interest and start slacking off from the site. It can be solved with outsourcing the content and blog… but still another issue. PPC with the mini-sites was so easy, we will see how this changes things over the coming months.
I agree, updating is hard to keep up with! That’s why I have been using a lot of dynamically updating stuff lately.
Can you please tell me more about “dynamically updating” stuff?thank you
I’m also talking real unique content, not scraped wikipedia junk.
I’m not as experienced with what Google allows or likes, but can you elaborate more on the Wikipedia statement? I have a destination site I just threw up and it’s 100% wiki scraped (well, copy/pasted) and runs PHPBay links at the bottom, based on the topic scraped from Wiki.
Also, if PPC was a good method for mini sites, do you change up your media buy model for the destination site? Go for more targeted advertising such as fan forums, etc.?
Great post!
Scraped wiki content leads to duplicate content, not original. That’s why I called it “junk”.
As for the media buying, its so dependent on the niche, hard to generalize.
I think at some point the SE’s are going to see the risk of biting the hand that feeds them with these quality score requirements. If all the previous mini-site builders that were perfectly happy throwing a quick site together and spending the PPC money stop doing that, and actually build up large sites that have the ability to rank in the organic results, then the SE’s have just killed their cash cow; the site owners who would rather pay the PPC dollars day after day instead of investing in the organic traffic model. SE’s aren’t making the money of the organic mega-sites, they are making money off those of us willing to pay for traffic to our “thin” mini-sites.
Agreed, Google sucks. But you have to play by their rules if you want to play the game.
I like your perspectives on changes like these Chad. Most aff bloggers will just complain and complain about all the changes Google makes and they eventually end up broke. Thanks for the info on destination sites.
Thats a good thing for me to know, seeing that I am just starting out. The only thing would be is, you build this big content site and the offer doesn’t work out or whatever. Should we test an offer first then build a destination site around it?
Thanks!
Yes, test first then if it shows any promise move forward. At least that’s what I do.
How do you then run CPA offers like insurance, dating etc.? Do you really have to build a thick content website to run these offers?
Yes, this is for CPA offers. You could easily make destination sites about the 2 niches you mentioned.
It seems it keeps getting harder and harder to make money doing this sort of things.
Chad,
What you are explaining works well with organic traffic. I created a new 15 page “destination site” (as you like to call it), with 500 words articles, links and so on. It worked well with organic traffic. As soon as I tried promoting the same pages on paid search, conversions dropped. That basically means that people clicking on paid links are not likely to stay and read. They are looking for a “quick solution”.
You mentioned you can integrate your landing pages with rest of your destination site. I think that’s what I’m missing. How can you create a focused landing page that looks like part the site?
Gagan
[...] reading over some blogs today when I came across a post that Chad over at CDFnetworks wrote called Mini Sites for PPC are Dead. Now, normally I love the advice that Chad gives out, in fact, I visit his blog almost daily to see [...]
I usually try to build all sites with SEO and organic traffic in mind. Where do you see the border when a mini-site turns into a real website? 20 pages original (unique content)? 30? 40?
[...] build a full blown 20 page destination site just to test an offer, do you? Chad just blogged this: Mini Sites for PPC are dead - “So where I do I see the current/future status of PPC landing sites? All of the new offers [...]
This is Bull. Mini sites still work fine.
B-Man
This makes sense. It might take more work, to build a destination site, but in the long term it would be really worth it.
PPC should really be used as an additional source of traffic, organic is the way to go.
I think what you’re noticing in terms of sites no longer working without a meaty back-end may also be due to Google breaking down each market vertical and arbitrarily deciding what Quality Scores for each of those verticals “should” be. They’ve used terminology like “low quality topic” or “niches without a solid market reputation” to describe evolutions in Quality Score metrics lately. No doubt this also come from their wanting to lure big advertisers not currently working with them in some of those verticals and jacking the rates on the existing competition to make room for bigger players. When a well-known brand name comes to a “lower quality niche” they bring some legitimacy with them, and likely end up with lower QS. Oftentimes affiliates are just ‘in the way’ of the bigger opportunity.
Chad - For a newbie like myself what do I need to make a full-blown site - can i be done using Wordpress or do I need something more sophisicated ? If so what ? Thanks.
Chad - Any thoughts about how this might affect sites of small business owners trying to drive traffic to call their number or visit their retail location? For example, my father is a lawyer and his site has been around forever and ranks well (thank god) but its only a few pages deep and the goal is to drive people to contact him. Does Google consider this a “thin affiliate” site?
I am myself about to launch a minisite however I have an 800 number to drive traffic to. Based on this though I might add some community functionality like a forum and video feeds to add more content and make it more of a destination.
Oh well, I guess this is just another reason to start exploring other marketing methods.
[...] Mini Sites For PPC Are Dead [...]