A hot topic among Internet marketers is the debate over mini sites versus big sites. A mini site is a small website consisting of two to five pages which is devoted to one subject. These are also called niche sites. A big site is a website that has hundreds or thousands of pages devoted to several subjects on a given topic.

When you create a mini site, your goal is for the visitor to take action. You don’t have to put up any fancy graphics or outgoing links. You want your visitor to stay focused on your message.

When you have a large website, you can take the time to add banners, outgoing links, and even flash plug-ins. You can have various sections that focus on different subjects, all relating to the same topic.

Some people may say that a mini site will increase your sales. Your visitors won’t be distracted by other things and they won’t click away as easily. Plus, you don’t have to worry about technical problems as much. If you have one large site, and it crashes, your business stops. On the other hand, if you have several mini sites, you don’t have to worry about your business completely stopping. Your other sites can still function and you can continue to earn money while your troubled site gets repaired.

Other people think that mini sites may repel some of your business. If your business consists of too many niches, you may lose out on repeat business from the same customers. For instance, if you have a mini site devoted to poodle shampoo, you will find some customers willing to buy information products on that subject.

However, if you had a larger site devoted to a larger subject, and poodle shampoo was just one of the topics, you could offer your customers complementary products. As you know, once someone is your customer, it will be easier to sell them other items.

There are benefits and pitfalls when it comes to organizing these two types of sites as well. With a mini site, there is not much content. You do not have to worry about subfolders and subdomains. However, maintaining 100 small sites can certainly take up a large chunk of time.

When you have a large site, you will have to worry about subfolders. But if you organize your site well in the beginning, finding content and links shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

When you decide between a large site and several mini sites, there are pros and cons for both ways. The choice really comes down to the way you want to run your business, and which you feel would be the better choice for you.