Minisite
Profits ($67)
This link goes to the sellers description and
order page. It opens in a new window.
The
only product
Minisite Profits is, as far as I can tell, Phil Wiley's only
original product on the subject of teaching Internet Marketing
techniques. Most of his online profit technique is devoted
to practicing the subject of this book, namely to post many
tiny minisites on a variety of niche topics, each with a product
of its own - usually affiliate products.
Age
of the book
This ebook is not exactly kept up to date. In fact it was
written in December 2001 which you can easily tell from the
stamp at the bottom of each page of the pdf file (which also
includes the path to it on his C drive.)
Bonuses
It comes with some bonuses, but be aware of some caveats.
For example, the "Killer Minisites" ebook does come
with resale rights, as advertised, but when you try to download
it you are urged to upgrade it to customize the links to your
own ($79). Also, there was an "unadvertised bonus"
ebook that the welcome email gave that was a dead link. However,
most of the ebooks and templates were as advertised.
I
had two other concerns about the bonus offers. First, there
was supposed to be a free consultation and critique for your
first minisite, but I've never been able to contact Wiley,
so I'm not so sure how that's supposed to work. Second, there
is a 20%-off bonus for his book, which is a little suspect
since this book came out in 2001, and I have yet to see another
book in the wings.
Content
As I mentioned in my review on Phil Wiley himself, it is obvious
that he is a student of Ken Evoy. He not only mentions Evoy
here and there, but uses terminology that obviously came from
Evoy's writings.
The
idea of Minisite Profits is sound and his advice echoes that
of most of the gurus, such as eliminating the elaborate link
and click options on sales pages, long copy, PreSelling (an
Evoy term) and finding small niches.
Wiley
takes you through the process of finding your niche idea.
The book is self-proclaimed as being geared more toward affiliate
marketing than original products. His method of researching
ideas isn't very elaborate and isn't exactly magic, but should
suffice to find some workable ideas. After all, his twist
is not that you'll make tens of thousands of dollars from
these sites, but that you'll get a hundred or two here and
there from each one, adding up to a sizeable overall profit.
On
the topic of getting search engine traffic, some of his search
engine information is dated (such as references to Overture),
but his advice is timeless. He again obviously rewrites Evoy's
ideas - simply write good content and search engine listings
will take care of themselves. This is sound advice, although
a little simplistic.
Wiley
does spend some time on keyword analyzers and how to use them,
and his advice is not unique - but it is good.
All-in-all,
there is little unique information about the techniques, but
the overall teaching on rapid research and development of
minisites, along with many resources to explore, makes this
a valuable book.
While
I wouldn't make this my first purchase, nor my first plan
for Internet marketing, it is an excellent idea for additional
income after a primary plan is in place. For example, my site
- pickaguru.com is one I spend a great deal of time working
on and is my primary focus. However, I'm now beginning to
use some of the minisite ideas to supplement it, and thus
help support the materials I need to buy in order to run pickaguru.
(pickaguru is not primarily a profit site, but I don't turn
down affiliate sales either.)
Quality
One of my biggest beefs with the Minisite Profits ebook is
the physical quality of the book itself. The layout shows
that it was obviously thrown together quickly, with little
thought to a polished look.
For
example, I already mentioned that each page is still tagged
with Wiley's C-drive filename and path. This is very easy
to turn off when making a PDF file, but he didn't bother.
Each
page ends with a set of navigation arrows, but there was no
check to make sure they fit on the page. In some cases it
spills over to the next page, so that there is an entire blank
page with nothing but navigation arrows at the top.
My
feeling is that when someone pays $67 for a book (which is
pretty expensive compared to actual hard-copy books) it should
look like quality. It's clear his view is that the information
is what's important, not the layout. I agree that the content
is critical, but shish, if I buy a $5 children's book I can
tell it has been poured over in every detail for errors. I
say if you want people to think of you as a professional then
you should earn it in your products.
Support
I will bring up support one more time (I mentioned it in the
Wiley Guru review page) because I think it's important to
know that when you buy his product you may not be a able to
get continuing support. My email to Phil Wiley remains unanswered.
Overall
So is this product worth it overall? Despite the problems
I obviously have with Wiley's quality and support philosophies,
I would have to say yes it is. It's clear that trying to build
a big Web site to sell lot's of affiliate products will not
work well, but that producing many mini-sites is a better
option. Phil Wiley uses lot's of examples to show you what
to do, step-by-step. It is a workable methodology.
I
bought it and I have no plan to return it (which I have been
known to do with clearly inferior products.)
In other words, I found it valuable enough to say that it
was worth more to me than the $67 price tag. (top)
Minisite
Profits ($67)
This link goes to the sellers description and
order page. It opens in a new window.
|
