Mini sites are the latest craze. The “I’m not going to make a real site but good enough that you can’t tell it’s really a parking page” type site that we are all building, is becoming commonplace on the net. I think it is a big move towards ridding the world of parking pages which all non domainer surfers despise. I don’t have to tell you that the web is becoming more mobile every day and that soon everyone will be on the web at least once a day on their phone or portable device. With that knowledge I’m surprised that none of the mini-sites I visit adjust to the mobile user. Many of the sites have moved to a quicker loading, less graphics, slimmer site when it detects a mobile user. Why not have mini-sites that do the same thing and place the ads and content in an easy to use package?
People click less ads when they use their phones to surf the web. Can I prove that? No, but I would bet on it because most ads are located off the screen when you have an iphone type device and secondly, most mobile edition sites simply don’t let the ads load so it doesn’t slow up the loading of the site. I’m working on a mini site that would let users wander the site quickly if they have a mobile device AND put some well positioned ads or links to draw in users. I’m not placing them hoping to draw the “fat finger” although that has crossed my mind. Since I actually want to keep my advertisers and Adsense I decided against it.
I don’t remember where I read it but sites have only a few seconds until their users leave so if it doesn’t load quickly there goes your chance to make money. By optimizing your site for mobile you can have a slick site for the computer user and another site that loads when mobile is detected. That way no matter who comes to the site the site is optimized to give them the best experience. The mobile site is much easier to design in my opinion because of the simplicity required. A few of your best posts, a simple picture, and your strongest ad all up front. I’m not a coder but having your site detect the OS of the user is pretty easy. In short, if you are making mini sites make sure that you create one for all the people that are on the go and no you don’t need .mobi to do it.