Cheapest Way to Build a Mini Site

29 replies
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I noticed a lot of people around here have mini sales page sites or mini adsense sites. It sounds interesting, but where do you go to get them cheap? What is the cheapest place you know of to build a mini site?

Or is everyone paying $20/month for each of their 200 sites?
#build #cheapest #mini #site
  • Profile picture of the author skoh
    I pay 14.99 for domain with privacy then use wordpress. It doesn't get any easier than that
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  • Profile picture of the author uncle randy 71
    I will agree with skoh. Buy a name from namecheap, get hosting from Hostgator and then install a simple Wordpress theme. Hostgator has tutorial videos to show you how to do EVERYTHING you need to accomplish this.
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  • Profile picture of the author Evan-M
    couldn't have said it better myself, after than learn some html/css to fancy up your theme.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rsberg
    If you could build good looking custom sites for $20 a month and fill them with lots of unique/related content and drive traffic to them through SEO/link building, article marketing...etc etc....wouldnt it be worth the $20?
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  • Profile picture of the author cindybidar
    Originally Posted by Shaunman View Post

    I noticed a lot of people around here have mini sales page sites or mini adsense sites. It sounds interesting, but where do you go to get them cheap? What is the cheapest place you know of to build a mini site?

    Or is everyone paying $20/month for each of their 200 sites?
    No. Most hosting plans allow add-on domains. I pay about $7 per month to host 15 sites, though theoretically the number of sites I can have for that price is "unlimited."

    You do need to pay for each domain name, though, and that will run you around $11 per year for each.
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  • Profile picture of the author good2go4
    I have about 20 domains running at the moment and I use WordPress for all of them - I have the one hosting account with Hostgator which runs at $9.99 per month - my domains each cost between 99cents and about $8 (yes some of them are info extensions) and with the hosting that I have I can add unlimited domains.

    I think it is great that this can be done so cheaply because then you can fun with your sites rather than sweating bullets over a return for your money. You can trial ideas for basically under $20 (including autoresponder) and tweak your site as you go.

    Have fun with it
    Lisa
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  • Profile picture of the author monk3ybidzness
    here my take:

    *get a domain
    *search for an offshore webhost ($30 for a year with 50 add-on domains)
    *most webhosts have cpanel with 1-click wordpress installation
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  • cheapest way? build mini affilaite sites

    join hostgator, $8 per month

    buy .info's $1 per domain

    install a wordpress minisite template

    Free Mini Website Template

    get backlinks

    that's all
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    • Profile picture of the author pr5931
      THANKS FOR THE FREE TEMPLATE INFO
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  • Profile picture of the author Rsberg
    Hostgator is pretty decent if you have a limited amount of sites but I would caution you not to add to many more to the one account. Once your sites start building in size...more pages, more content..etc...then there is a good chance they will start to run slower. Most of the hosting companies say "unlimited" number of sites but that can be a little misleading.

    Just an FYI if you start to really build a fair amount of sites.

    Also, one more thought... It's a fairly common practice for those with several sites to split your sites up among different IP addresses. This is good for several reasons but a couple of the main concners for avoiding hosting several blogs on the same IP are as follows:

    1. If there is a problem with a host that causes down time then it doesnt affect all of your sites
    2. If all of your sites are on one IP and you do something with one of them to "upset" Google and they "slap" you then there is a good chance all of your sites on that IP cold get punished at the same time. Doesnt mean it will happen but there is a decent chance of it.

    There are several other reasons but these are typically the main concerns for hosting multiple blogs on 1 IP.

    As a general rule of thumb its a good idea not to host more than 12-15 (some people say less, some more) WP blogs on one IP. As mentioned before your sites can grow to be somewhat large over time, add to that the resources that some plugins require and your sites performance can really slow down.

    Hope thats helpful...
    Robert
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    • Profile picture of the author imkevintan
      If you've some money to spend, Unbounce may be a good choice for you. They host all your minisites and offer nicely designed minisite templates. Also, you can customize the templates with its WYSIWYG editing tools. Everything is drag-and-drop so you don't have to touch the coding part. Plus, you can even do some A/B split testing! Of course, you need to have a domain name.
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    • Profile picture of the author IndigoJack
      Originally Posted by Rsberg View Post

      Hostgator is pretty decent if you have a limited amount of sites but I would caution you not to add to many more to the one account. Once your sites start building in size...more pages, more content..etc...then there is a good chance they will start to run slower. Most of the hosting companies say "unlimited" number of sites but that can be a little misleading.

      Just an FYI if you start to really build a fair amount of sites.

      Also, one more thought... It's a fairly common practice for those with several sites to split your sites up among different IP addresses. This is good for several reasons but a couple of the main concners for avoiding hosting several blogs on the same IP are as follows:

      1. If there is a problem with a host that causes down time then it doesnt affect all of your sites
      2. If all of your sites are on one IP and you do something with one of them to "upset" Google and they "slap" you then there is a good chance all of your sites on that IP cold get punished at the same time. Doesnt mean it will happen but there is a decent chance of it.

      There are several other reasons but these are typically the main concerns for hosting multiple blogs on 1 IP.

      As a general rule of thumb its a good idea not to host more than 12-15 (some people say less, some more) WP blogs on one IP. As mentioned before your sites can grow to be somewhat large over time, add to that the resources that some plugins require and your sites performance can really slow down.

      Hope thats helpful...
      Robert
      Ditto the above.

      Some posts & threads on here (not just this thread but others on WF), have been a HostGator love-in.

      HOWEVER I have a client who has had repeated problems with HG such as unexplained downtime, website code interference so the php site becomes inaccessible, slow response time to emergency queries....etc etc

      So be careful where you place your faith.

      On another general note.......BANDWIDTH!!! Some, most, the majority of hosting providers will offer you cheap packages to host a certain number or an 'unlimited' number of domains/websites. But, check their offer out because the catch may be....
      • They will absolutely hammer you in bandwidth costs if you go over quota.
      • They will limit the amount of bandwidth available so that you have to upgrade to a more expensive account.
      • They will limit the number of databases that can be used - thus forcing an upgrade to a more expensive account.
      They DO NOT want you to be using the cheap account! So they will tailor it to force the prolific user to upgrade.
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  • Profile picture of the author skoh
    Host Gator actually is one of the few hosting companies that will allow you to host multiple sites on different class C networks.
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  • Profile picture of the author jaiganeshv
    i keep registering domains and keep building niche sites using the only thesis theme. its very flexible and i can make any design out of it.

    just my 2 cents/
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  • Profile picture of the author banggates
    Strategy of Micro site in the moment was loose effect very much. Because google have just Discovered it.
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    • Profile picture of the author FredJones
      Many have said it and I repeat for voting in favor of it. Yes, use Hostgator at $10 per month - in theory you can host unlimited number of domains. Yes, buy domain names from reliable resellers - personally I use GoDaddy. And yes, use Wordpress - that's free. If you want to remain really cheap go for a .info - is really cheap for the first year at $1.

      So, your cost is $10+ (say, $11) for your domain, pay $120 per year on Hostgator (but host say 10 domains on it - so you are paying $1 per month per domain), and no other cost - so you pay $2 per domain per month.


      That is 10% of your $20 per domain per month. In other words, with your monthly budget of $20, you can end up hosting 10 domains rather than 1 domain - a 1000% improvement!
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  • Profile picture of the author hearme
    Well there are alot of mini site creator software and web service just google it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tooschee
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    Need great looking mini site? Visit Professional Landing Pages
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  • Profile picture of the author Rsberg
    Shaun,

    Sent you a PM.

    Robert
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    • Profile picture of the author colomedia1
      Are minisites still effective?

      I am thinking of creating a series of them to see how they work.
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  • Profile picture of the author DomainZaar
    Originally Posted by Shaunman View Post

    I noticed a lot of people around here have mini sales page sites or mini adsense sites. It sounds interesting, but where do you go to get them cheap? What is the cheapest place you know of to build a mini site?

    Or is everyone paying $20/month for each of their 200 sites?
    Check the first WSO in my signature, you will see a great way to build mini-sites
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  • Profile picture of the author crescendo
    If you want a quality website, you should spend minimum $200, including domain and hosting.
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    • Profile picture of the author JonnyHardwick
      Here's my recommendations for building a minisite:

      I recommend FusionHost.com for the cheapest hosting for unlimited domains. You also get a free dedicated IP for your hosting account which is great for SEO and a free domain with every account.

      HostGator.com is also good but a bit more expensive and you don't get the dedicated IP and the free domain.

      I recommend NameCheap.com for cheap domain names + whoisguard.

      I recommend X-SitePro.com for knocking out great looking minisites and WordPress.org for blogs.
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      Marketeering - Digital Marketing Strategies
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  • Profile picture of the author zeekstern
    I too will have to disagree with going with HostGator. Way too many complaints. Check out IXwebhosting. They recently started a new "Support" system that will certainly be copied by all the other hosting companies. I have 3 support people to email at any time I choose. This is in addition to the 24 hour telephone support etc.

    I've been with them for over 6 years and have no complaints at all. $3.95 per mo is their cheap plan, but I would recommend the next one up. Money back guarantee at any time, the last time I checked.
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  • Profile picture of the author zigato
    Not a fan of Hostgator, prefer HawkHost myself. Cheaper too

    Wouldn't get a free domain name like #22 (although I think it was a joke), Namecheap is pretty good.
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  • Profile picture of the author fbhc
    I agree with the majority to use Hostgator, I can't remember ever having a problem with them the last few years. However, I prefer to use Joomla over Wordpress. It is a free install like WP from the hg cpanel. Either choice will still be under 20 bucks a month. I'm thinking less than 5 bucks a month for the hosting plus annual for the domain name.
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  • Profile picture of the author xtine
    Buy a name from namecheap, then Hostgator and then Wordpress, optimize your contents here. That might help.
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  • Profile picture of the author mathmo
    Get the domains for cheap, if you are paying more than ten bucks [per year] you're doing it wrong.

    Likewise you can get the hosting cheap too which you can throw all your sites on, again if you're paying more than ten bucks when starting out you're doing it wrong... [although this is ten per month, for shared hosting]

    Any many instances you can get it significantly cheaper than this.

    Use open source to keep development quick and simple.

    Pick an open source content management system (CMS). I'd recommend Wordpress, or alternatively Drupal or Joomla (although these later two have a much steeper learning curve, wouldn't recommend them for a mini site).

    Then for any extra fiddling you need to do use:

    Notepad++
    GIMP
    Firefox (and fireftp)


    Done!
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    Terso IT: for Web Development and SEO Latest blog post, on the mindset of outsourcing: How to Outsource: 2 kinds, which are you?
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  • Profile picture of the author bestdesigner
    You cannot get good quality in cheap websites.
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