Yes.

On a good day I'll hit around 80,000 visits. The site runs almost everything you can think of.. Adsense, paid adverts, products, membership, affiliates.

It does well.

Every major player has a big site. There are no one page mini-sites among the highest converting sites on the 'net or the sites making the most money. Check the Neilsen stats for proof.

The one-page mini-site is used almost exclusively by IMers who aren't making very much money.

Oddly, those teaching one page mini-sites claim that they have a higher conversion rate because of a lack of distractions. But it simply isn't true.

All of the sites with over 500,000 monthly visitors tracked by Neilen and having double digit conversion rates are large sites with thousands of pages.

The one page mini-sites sometimes get up to a 5% or even an 8% conversion rate if the product price is extremely low. But the large sites are doing 10%-52% conversion rates with an average sale price of $85.

In this case, size does matter.

[DELETED]

Hey, I will be working on an experiment to find out the answer to this, be on the lookout as I'll be sharing exactly how I make money from AdSense!

Yep I have a big site that makes quite a bit of money. But I don't use Adsense or affiliate promos. It basically started off as a "can I do it" site where I was trying to build a site here in SA and profile venues in various parts of the country. Kinda like the Google idea where it is free for the visitor, but if you want to be on the site you have to pay.

The key for me was the planning at the beginning. Because it's going to be a big site I had to make sure that provinces, cities, regions etc. could be easily grouped together later.

I like it because I get to deal with and help local b&b, hotel etc. owners.

Ive had three sites over the last 6 years with around 10,000 members each. One of which I just recently sold for $25K. Sites like these typically have to be monitored constantly, in which case, you spend the majority of your time "glued" to your computer.

Im now making mini sites selling info products, which operate on autopilot bringing in continual revenue. Whilst my larger sites were fun and I made good money, I like the freedom and flexibility of which my minisites bring me. As for the bigger sites, I dont intend going back to that business model anytime soon.

Yes. The source is Neilsen.

Here, let me Google that for you:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...s&aq=f&aqi=&oq=

Here is the month where a retailer finally broke the 50% conversion rate barrier:

http://www.grokdotcom.com/2009/02/20...-january-2009/

It really amazes me that most readers of the #1 marketing forum on the planet aren't familiar with the Neilsen web stats.

I'm curious. What is your source for this kind of information?

Telegram Sam,

Have you ever done better than 8% with a mini-site?

The 10%-52% on large sites is well documented by Neilsen.

Unless you think Neilsen is utter garbage.

Where are the double digit converting mini-sites in the Neilsen stats? I don't see any. I've never see anyone claim higher than 8% conversion ratio with a mini-site and only warm traffic.

Of course you can do 20%-50% with a hot buyers list, but that isn't relevant to the discussion; is it? The discussion is about whether big sites do between or small one-page mini-sites.

The data shows clearly that large sites convert better.

Dan,

None of your points matter when you consider that there are no mini-sites anywhere in the Neilsen data.

That is comparing apples to apples. Whatever the shortcomings of the Neilsen data, those shortcomings are the same for all of the sites listed in the Neilsen data.

Since the Neilsen data only deals with very high traffic sites, their toolbar is extremely accurate. I know. Our company is listed and they get our data eerily correct every single time. We wish our competitors didn't have direct access to our demographics, traffic and conversion rate data, but they do... thanks to Neilsen getting it dead on right every single month.

Do you have a site tracked by Neilsen? If so, have you EVER seen a variance of even 1% from your actual results?

Neilsen has been in this business for longer than the Internet has existed. They started out with Television ratings. I think they know their business well enough and their data is accurate and reliable.

Besides, what is your alternative?

Big Dan says that Neilsen data is garbage. OK. What data isn't garbage then? Where is your evidence that mini-sites do better than large sites given that all of the mainstream data is contrary to your position?

I have a few websites that are huge sites and get massively more traffic then my affiliate marketing websites. I'd like to have a mixture of both to diversify my revenue and it works out well for me.

Larger sites naturally do better in the search engines and become an authority over time. Traffic goes up, revenue goes up, and best of all value goes up. So if you ever decide to sell the website becomes a real asset.

Everybody stop questioning Kristi when she pronounces on something here. Just stop it. She knows best. We're all just idiots with small sites and big dreams. She's friends with billionaires, owns a company making 7 figures in a bad year, and can teach all us peasants a thing or two. Believe it! Keep a notebook handy and take notes when she graces us with her vast experience and knowledge. How dare any of you have the audacity to question her!

Lest you take this the wrong way, Kristi, understand that I really mean it when I say that I genuinely enjoy your posts. I wish the forum had more people like you. You truly make my days a lot more fun. No sarcasm intended. I "get" you.

EDIT: Oh and I have a ton of small sites and do just fine, thank you. Not at Kristi's millionaire level, of course, but then I also don't ask in the Warrior Forum for JV partners like she does. I think it's refreshing that a middle 7-figure expert like her has the time to do small JV deals with peon Warriors. It's like charity work.

Depends what type of site it is and whats its aimed at. Its not a case of determining should i create a big site or little site. It's finding out what works and sticking with that

Dan,

I never said Neilsen doesn't deal with mini-sites. They deal with ANY site that has decent traffic. I said that NO mini-sites even show up in their data. That is an affirmative statement that no mini-sites even meet the qualifications of traffic, conversion rate, etc to even deserve being tracked.

So what data do you have to show that mini-sites do better than big sites?

Everyone in this thread who actually has experience with both claim you are wrong. Neilsen claims you are wrong. My own experience claims you are wrong.

Surely if you believe mini-sites do better than big sites, you must have some kind of evidence to back up that claim?

BTW, what you are proposing doesn't even make sense.

If the highest converting site on the Neilsen stats is converting at 52.5% and gets over 500,000 visitors per month, what would it take for a mini-site to do better and not show up in the Neilsen stats at all?

Are you claiming there are mini-sites out there that get 499,999 monthly visitors and a higher conversion rate than 52.5% and just don't show up in Neilsen because they have 1 less visitor than the 500,000 required to be tracked?

They would show up in some of the other data if that is the case. Not all of the Neilsen data requires 500,000 visitors to be tracked.

Your position is untenable. Mini-sites don't make more money than big sites. Otherwise we would see at least a few in any of the major tracking systems. We don't see any at all... ever.

It depends on what you consider a large site. I have a site with about 300 pages. That's larger than many, perhaps larger than most, but it used to be about 600 pages so it's not large compared to what it was. I know of sites with over 10,000 pages, so mine isn't large compared to them.

So if you consider 300 pages a large site, yep, I have one and I'm doing well with it...but then again, it depends on what you call doing well. I earn my living with it, is that doing well? I didn't make a six-figure income last year, thanks in part to a hacker, is that not doing well? The trouble with your question is it that can be answered with subjective opinions, so unless someone volunteers specific data, the answers you get don't mean much because what they call "large" and what they call "doing well" may not be the same as what you call large and doing well.

There are no differing methodologies involved other than in examples you gave without supporting data.

Neilsen uses only one methodology and they know what they are doing. You haven't shown anything to the contrary.

Money earned is a function of (visitors * conversion rate) * average sale amount.

If you have more than 500,000 monthly visitors, a 52% conversion rate with an average sale amount of $85 (as Schwanns does), a site would need to have a 100% conversion rate with 250,000 visitors or more per month (but less than 500,000) and an average ticket price of more than $85 to somehow be a mini-site that makes more than the large sites listed by Neilsen and yet somehow not show up in the listings by Neilsen.

It isn't tenable to suspect that such a site exists, much less to suspect that so many of these sites exist that make more money than the sites actually listed by Neilson that mini-sites actually make more money than the large sites listed by Neilsen.

The reasons are numerous:

1. It is astounding to everyone in the online business community that 50% was finally broken by Schwanns. It would be extremely astounding to think that dozens of mini-sites are doing better than 50%.

2. The standard bell curve model would suggest that these mini-sites couldn't hide out in the space between 250,000 monthly visitors and 500,000 visitors without spilling over somewhat into the region above 500,000 visitors that would make them show up in the Neilsen data.

3. No other data suggests that mini-sites are doing better than large sites ANYWHERE under ANY measurement. They don't show up in the Alexa data for traffic. They don't show up in the Neilsen data for # of sales or traffic or conversion ratio.

Is there a mini-site with a $100,000 ticket item that made more money than even one of the top 10 listed by Neilsen? It's possible. Are there hundreds of mini-sites that do better than the top 100 Neilsen listed sites that happen to all be large? No. The odds of such at thing being the case are truly astronomical.

Freaking HILARIOUS! This thread is awesome! It went from Lilblackdress just wanting to know if anyone here had a big site making good money to our friend Kristi kicking the crap out of a straw man of her own creation about mini sites making as much money as a huge site like Amazon or something comparably sized. As Mickey D's says, I'M LOVIN' IT!!! It takes real talent to hijack a thread and patronize everyone involved at the same time. I'm in awe of you, Kristi. I really mean it.

Hehe, can anyone PM me there big sites so I can see what actually classifies as a big site .

Did you know that the owner of ProFlowers (back before they were owned by a corporation that is owned by a corporation that is owned by a corporation) used to post here on the Warrior forum?

They didn't give their site name and it was the old, old forum, not this one... so don't go looking for it. Back then they only had a 2% conversion rate. It's a good thing they ignored the people who were preaching "single page mini-site" or they wouldn't be doing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in sales today.

Somone pointed out that "big" site is subjective and we can't have a meaningful discussion without defining "mini-site" and "big" site. I would normally agree, but it turns out it really isn't ambiguous at all.

Those saying "mini-site" are generally actually talking about a one page or two page site. The one page is the sales letter. The two pages is a squeeze page and a sales letter. Sometimes it might even stretch into maybe 10 or 20 pages if you count a privacy policy, affiliate support pages, etc.

A "big" site on the other hand means at least a hundred pages and it turns out that all of the big sites that are in the top ten actually have thousands to tens of thousands or even millions of pages (Amazon.com).

The gap between anyone's perceived vision of a "mini-site" (no more than 20 pages) and a "big" site (more than 100 pages and usually a LOT more) is big enough that we are all pretty much talking about the same thing.

Many here were affiliates for ProFlowers.com on CJ and can verify that the owner did post here. Allen may even jump in to verify that. They didn't post to get traffic to their site though (obviously) so you can't search for Proflowers.com to find those posts.

Many here will also know that this forum has been rehosted twice. ProFlowers was a Warrior back in the old, old forum. Judging by your picture, you were probably still in elementary school.

I only posted that to give people the idea that they actually can graduate from the Warrior forum into companies that earned hundreds of millions of dollars a year. People have in the past. The owner of ProFlowers did.

Sherrie of Sherrie's Berries also had an account here if I recall correctly. It might have been the other big IM forum that I am remembering. Sherrie's Berries is now owned by ProFlowers, but earns tens of millions per year.

One of my sites has 199,485 web pages listed in Yahoo, less in Google.

It does well.

Quite often my mini-sites will make more revenue than that big one, more profit per month. For clarification, my mini-sites are usually less than 10 pages, but more than 5 pages.

Either way, there is money to be made, just do it.

Forget Nielsen, forget statistics, just make money and smile.

Hey Kristi, please don't stop. Regale us with more of your wisdom. So many of us are struggling to get to your level. Can I do a JV with you? Please? I won't even ask to call you to discuss it or ask you any questions. You set the terms and then feel free to belittle me if I don't understand. I know I'll learn a lot from you if you'll only give me a chance. Help me to become like you. Throw me a bone.

Zeus,

Umm let me think.... No.

Try again when you are all grown up.

I don't have any limos.

And the answer is... No.

You've ruined my entire week. You don't love me.

I changed my mind.

Here is your first task.

For the next year, don't post, write or say anything negative. Stop being cynical and look at the world for the way it is. Try to help people rather than attack them. Envision yourself the way you want to be. Look for the good in others instead of the bad.

When you have finished that task, report back and I'll give you your next task.

I don't get the argument?

Do both make good money? Yes

How do you make money with Mini-sites? Generally build tons of them, to earn smaller amounts of residual from each site i.e 100 mini-sites making 5 dollars a day each would be 500 dollars daily

How do you make money with Larger sites? Build 1-2 big sites, do huge maintenance on them, plan out how the site will build out, promote them via various marketing methods

and then the money rolls in from the traffic the site can receive over time through products, services, ads, and adsense.

Can 1 mini-site compare to a big site in terms of money ? No

Can a mini-site compare to a big site in terms of conversion rate ? Yes

A mini-site can receive 100 visitors a day and convert 50 into customers.

Similarly, a big site can get 500,000 visitors and convert 250,000 into customers? Are their conversion rates the same ? Yes

Would the mini-site keep the same rate if it had the same amount of traffic? Probably not

Overtime which can make more money? The real question to this is, how hard is the person doing one of the 2 methods willing to work.

A big site in time will profit from its tremendous traffic, as it continually grows.

For someone doing the mini-site method, they would have to find a working formula and continually tackle more and more mini-sites to keep up with the profit making of the big site.

Can it be done? Yes

On Your Own? Absolutely not

Both require work but the big site has more chance of racing ahead with profit because..

With mini-sites you generally tackle a new niche each time, which means research, and testing and I don't care if you can outsource. The amount outsourcing would cost to keep up with a highly profitable big-site would be quite large.

And not all mini-sites will work.

If you want to be a high 6-figure or 7-figure earner, I'd atleast build a big site on the side.

On the other hand, it's not unheard of to be a low 6-figure mini-site earner.

Jay.

/I win this thread

[DELETED]

My bad I read it wrong,

I thought I'd read You wouldn't last 5 minutes!

My bad

[DELETED]

Well if your "big site" is getting alot of traffic i am sure u will make the dollars!but alot of small ones are also powerfull.

This is soooo true. It's happened to me and with a totally white hat all unique content site. Of course that was a few years back and I think it was an innocent bystander that got whacked during some sort of purge and I think google is better at not doing that now.

Anyway, the other side of the coin is that if you have just 1 big site you can really leverage all your backlinking work since it is all being done for that 1 site.

Lee

Kristi? Do you know who you're talking to? Let me show you a few threads where Zeus66 helped people:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...marketing.html
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...g-suicide.html
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...bwNaovOHvtoLOG
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...e-opening.html

WOOT WOOT! You said a mouthful there, Sam!

size matters for sites, the bigger and more organized the site is, the potential to make a profit will be greater

The OP asked:

Is Anyone Making Money with BIG Sites?

The simple answer is... yes.

In fact, ALL of the top 10 largest earners and ALL of the top 10 ranking sites and ALL of the top 10 sites by traffic and ALL of the top 10 sites by conversion ratio are all huge and number in the hundreds of thousands of pages each.

Not a single mini-site is represented in the top 10 or even the top 100 in any category.... not in traffic, revenue, # of sales, conversion rate or anything else.

The source is... every source I can find. Wall Street Journal. Forbes. Alexa. Neilsen. Every single reliable source that tracks any of these things agrees with that conclusion 100% without exception.

That is as simple as it gets.

With the talk of Amazon and having 20,000 products or whatever, that's not the only kind of big sites you know. One of my sites is about 300 pages. About 20 or so of those pages are product pages, the rest is content. The content draws in search engine traffic. The content pages are helpful, which helps build trust, reputation, and a mailing list. Several of the content pages lead readers to product pages. There is also a product index. So even though the number of actual product pages is small compared to the number of content pages, this kind of site works and works well because the products are based are the same kind of content that people came to find.

[DELETED]

I tried once to make a big site, and end up spending 5 months of my time and i didn't rank for the targeted keyword and i lost 1k+ worth of outsourcing money and making no money how cool is that lol

i'm not saying that big sites does not work, but you should really know what you are dealing with, because you might end up with nothing or with everything .

I never claimed that the highest traffic sites made any money.

All of the claims are separate.

The top 100 highest traffic sites are large (let's use the definition of > 100 pages each)

The top 100 highest converting sites are > 100 pages each

The top 100 sites making the most number of sales are > 100 pages each

The top 100 sites making the most revenue are > 100 pages each

Those claims are individual. I never said anything about the highest traffic sites being the ones making the most money.

The OP question is whether you can make money with big sites. Yes you can. In fact, all of the sites making the most money are large (ie: > 100 pages... usually in the hundreds of thousands or millions of pages).

It doesn't matter what measurement you use. All the top dogs are large sites, not 1-20 page mini-sites. Yes... without exception.

By answering and not addressing your misinformation about YouTube, I am not going along with your claims.

The last time I checked, YouTube is owned by Google. Google is extremely profitable. YouTube.com is a very large site, not a 1-20 page mini-site.

The moving around of bandwidth on their financial statements is suspect, but most people in finance that I have talked to agree that their method of accounting is appropriate. The SEC certainly hasn't taken any action. I give them the benefit of the doubt.

At least no one is talking about apples and oranges now, or was it apples and apples?

I'm pretty sure Lilblackdress was asking us (Warriors) if any of us were making money with big sites. She'll chime in if that's wrong (unless she has wisely run screaming from this thread long ago). We're not the owners of Amazon, etc. We're mostly people with small or at most medium sized businesses. I realize there are exceptions, such as Kristi and her billionaire pals who sell flowers and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure Lilblackdress was asking the everyday "little" people who make up the vast majority of Warriors. And I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that the vast majority of us make our livings from sites that are a might bit smaller - if we judge these things by number of pages - than the Amazons of the Web.

So, getting back to the intent of this thread, I'm sure many of us would love to take one of our smaller sites to the level of success of the big boys (sorry, Kristi, and gals). But you don't need that to become well off. Filsaime, Kern, Reese, and many many others are in the millionaire's club with very small sites.

And I'm guessing they don't give a rat's patootey if they ever show up in the Nielsen online rankings. LOL

That is a common past-time on Warrior forum... asking about the "biggest", or the "most profitable" or the "best" or the "fastest", but they mean only within a tiny little bubble that is what they can conceive.

If Filsaime, Reese and Kern don't like large sites, then why do they all have > 100 pages sites themselves?

I've only spoken to two of the three you mention and only spoken about this subject to one of the three you mention. I can assure you that one WOULD like to be in the Neilsen ratings and is doing everything he can do achieve that goal. Outside of our conversations, I can also see that he has written a lot about the subject and is devoted to one very large site.

Your examples aren't very good examples for proving the "mini-site" argument. All three are owners of large sites (> 100 pages) and at least one of the three is teaching that you should focus on one very large site.

BTW, have you noticed that all three are Warrior members, but rarely post here.

Do you think that might be because the pedantic among you have attacked them so often in the past that they didn't feel welcome here?

How much more valuable would the Warrior forum be if we stopped the name calling and pedantic attitudes?

I suspect it would be a lot more valuable.

God I really love you Kristi. You have the answer to everything. You realize we all know the pattern by now, don't you? I almost didn't tell you this because it's so much more fun when we can string people like you along for a lot longer, but I'll do it and spoil the fun...

You're predictable. Sorry, but you really are. When confronted, your fallback is name dropping on a personal level. Someone mentions that top IM'ers have made huge money on very small sites - as have each of the ones I mentioned and many many others - and your response is to claim firsthand knowledge of the people in question. It's both amusing and sorta pathetic at the same time. I find myself almost mesmerized by you. You cause this curious combination of laugh out loud hilarity juxtaposed with, well, pity. It's fascinating, truly.

But your argument skills, which are another issue entirely really, are puerile. High school debate team tactics. Sorry, but someone had to tell you. For example (one of many), you set up numerous straw men, then proceed to rip the stuffing out of them. It fools lesser minds, but it just comes off as desperate to others. Just in this last case, to take one example, I never claimed Filsaime, Reese, etc. ONLY had small sites. I didn't even claim they didn't prefer larger sites. I simply stated the irrefutable fact that they each (as well as a whole lot of others) have made big sums of money from very small sites. Namely, sales pages with the attendant privacy, disclaimer, etc. pages.

Now, stay true to form and shoot back with how you once had this very discussion with Frank Kern over an espresso when he asked if he could pick your brain and learn from you some time ago. You know, before he finally hit it big.... after he met with you.

I'm seriously smitten here. MARRY ME!

If you read back through this thread, you will see that it was YOU who name dropped, not me. I just corrected you based on the facts.

Most of your claims refer to your tactics, not mine. I am the only person who posted a link to the actual facts. You never did post any fact, only straw man arguments and name calling.

It was John Reese I discussed this topic with. He approached me. I didn't approach him although I would have if he hadn't approached me first. You can verify the fact on his blog. He teaches one large site and focusing on one large site as the main point of your business.

Frank Kern and I have only exchanged emails once. He contacted me. I didn't contact him.

I have never spoken with or email exchanged Mike Filsaime. I assume his is in roughly the same income bracket as the other two (7 or 8 figures). I don't know anything about him.

Paul Myers corrected you last time you were wrong.

Maybe John will pop in this time.

Or you can just go read his blog... his non-mini-site blog.

You really would enjoy the company of those three and many others who are very successful if you treated them better when they did visit here.

You know, I've been here a few years. I really enjoy the Warrior forum.

But it really ticks me off to start reading a thread that I find interesting, only to find out I have to filter out bickering and nit-picking.

I thought some of Kristi's posts were informative. I thought some of Zeuss's replies were informative. But why do some of you feel the need to nit-pick to death?

Zeuss and Kristi, I don't know you, you are likely good people. But seems to me ya'll just want to pick a fight. Can't one of you step down and let it die, and realize that you are no longer contributing to this thread? A few (like THREE) posts of bickering can be both amusing and even helpful for readers. But several? Just gets old.

Ezinearticles is a big site if you look for the simplest type of big sites.

Larger sites are definitely more profitable in the long run IF you know how to structure them and have a clear idea from the start.

Niche sites are quick money and I consider them training for building authority websites.

The benefit of having a huge site is clearly the authority it carries and that gets passed through to new pages. When you post content on a "big" site, it gets indexed and ranked in minutes and starts making money right away.

The thing is you have to plan, do the work and most importantly be patient.

[DELETED]

Good read, and humorous at that

If I were more awake, I would probably stop myself from jumping into this one, but these are the types of discussions that we can really learn from - the kind (almost - I wasn't counting on the entertainment aspect - that was just extra!) that I come to the forum to read.

Kristi, while I'm certainly familiar with Nielsen, I had no idea they were providing information on internet activity. I found some very interesting articles on their site. While they focus on large sites, many of the business aspects in their articles and information can be applied to sites of all sizes. I appreciate you sharing. (I was glued to their site for an hour and going back for more!)

Zeuss - I secretly admire every post you write and have learned loads from you as I've quietly perused the forum the past several months.

Oh, gees, I can't back up to see who (Dan?) offered some insights I found thought-provoking. You are right, the Nielsen data cannot be used to make a claim that large sites have the best conversion rates as no small sites were used in the comparison. The data pool was confined to large sites.

I personally believe (and NO I don't have any data to back it up) that conversion rates are not a function of size. I would guess they are a function of:

1) The degree of targeted traffic received.
2) The need for the product.
3) How well the material is presented and described.
4) Ease of purchase.
5) Perceived authority of the site based on look/material/proof or whatever medium was used to convince the visitor they needed the product.
6) Perceived quality of the product.

(Note to self: huh - I should probably go back and evaluate my own sites for those things...)

Large retail sites (which is at least what one of the Nielsen charts considered) probably do make more money in most cases. We should be wondering why and how we can use that information to our advantage even if we just have small sites - or are growing small sites to be big one day (one can dream, right?). My guess:

1. A developed brand
2. Brand recognition
3. Lots of choices for consumers
4. Very targeted traffic
5. Multiple advertising mediums (print, television, radio)

So, even for my small site approach (although I have no one page sites - I always shoot for minimum 20 posts/pages of content), I can see brand is probably important no matter how big or small.

Offering multiple choices is something I don't do well but if I were to "think like my customer", offering choices might improve sales. I've seen sites that target just one product but offer choices like a mini version of the product for one price and the full boat for a higher price. That counts as "choices". Maybe there are other ways to offer choices. I simply hadn't considered it before.

I've read and read and read about getting targeted traffic but thinking about it in large-site scale kind of helped me see that I probably need to improve in this area. LLBean probably doesn't write an article on how to make your own clothes just because there's a large search volume for that phrase. They ignore it and focus on targeted traffic. Sometimes I get carried away by the monthly search volume number thinking I can convert some of those people. Maybe I could, but now I get that it's much easier to convert people looking for my products - not people looking for something close to, but different from, my products.

Multiple advertising mediums - like we talk about YouTube and forums and articles and PPC. Employing multiple methods of driving traffic is probably better than relying on one source.

So, the thread was fun - but more importantly, it made me think. (Oh, dang - I stayed up past my bedtime again!!!)

If size matters then I win, because Im the biggest dude in here

I'm not trying to come off as a jerk here....but isn't this kind of a dumb argument?

Of course big sites are going to make more money...why wouldn't they? That's like saying Nabisco makes more money than your local mom & pop company that makes crackers and sells them at the county fair. Well no kidding.

But it also take a heckuva lot more to run a company like Nabisco than the local mom & pop company.

Call me crazy, but I'd say most members of this forum would be much better suited focusing on running a successful mom & pop company before they would a Nabisco. Not to say that running a Nabisco isn't a good long-range goal, but c'mon - how feasible is it (in at least the short and maybe even medium term) for most of us? Not overly likely.

And just speaking for myself here, I bet many of us would be more than happy with running a successful mom & pop operation...and could live quite comfortably on it.

*shrug*

Just want to share:

I use to have a "big" site (I am not sure how you define big, but I do have about 500,000 uniques with several thousand of pages). The conversion would never be high, due to many untargetted traffic, or basically people just visiting your site for many other reasons other than buying. Conversion at 2% is considered great.

On the contrary, the many smaller sites which I have. The conversion rates are much higher as the traffic are much more targetted. The traffic is also much much lower (even down to 100 or less uniques). But conversion rates are much much higher, up to 30 - 50%.

Dollars wise, the big site wins hands down. Percentage wise, the smaller sites win. It really depends on how you look at the conversions really. Big sites has huge amount of maintenance work associated with it, whereas small sites needs much lesser work.

For me, I would prefer to build many small sites, day-to-day work is far lesser.

There is no one size fits all, all the stats are for reference only really.

cheers to all!

what do you mean by "big site"?

I don't want to have a chain of shops or large physical warehouses.

But my "takeaway" from all this is that if you want a high conversion then you have to have a big site and you have to sell food :-)

Is that right Kristi?

I'm so dumb and we are all so dumb, that I would appreciate your approval please.

Perhaps Frank will know.

Now, I just have to figure out how I can deliver downloadable pizza's...

Sam

The truth is that big sites makes money short and simple.

In my experience, I usually make more money when I focus on one "big" project per year than 10 mini site projects.

When I asked the question I was thinking of small niche sites under 10 pages or so vs sites with lots of pages and posts 30+ pages or more. I was not thinking of mega sites like Amazon or Yahoo.

When I posted I was wondering, is it easier to convert on a small site where the desired action is more obvious than on a larger site which may provide many more options.

Thanks for all your thoughts. I now realize what I thought was big is actually small
And Sojourn very good points on targeted traffic regardless of the site size.