Guide to Single-Serving Websites

To be successful on the hyper-competitive 'Net of today, you need to be memorable - "worthy of being remembered." There's no better way to do that in a world of short attention spans than to develop single-serving websites. Let's review the basics of these singularly-focused sites, how to develop an idea for one, and how to effectively promote it.

What is a Single-Serving Website?
As we mentioned in yesterday's Design & Development Digest e-newsletter, a single-serving website is a stand-alone Web page that does just one thing. What is unique about these single-focused web pages is they answer just one question, solve just one problem or address just one meme. Intrigued yet?

While single-serving websites can be entertaining, website owners with an entrepreneurial spirit and some marketing savvy can generate lots of attention for products or services (through social media or via search engines) when they handle a micro-project like this thoughtfully. To make the idea more palatable for those who want to put all of their content on one site, consider this a creative way to shine a spotlight on one particular theme of your site.

Where to Find Ideas for Single-Serving Websites?
If you're quick on the draw and tapped into the latest trends you'll just "know" what idea will make a compelling single-serving website. The rest of us usually aren't that lucky. Fortunately, there are hundreds of places to find inspiration for a single-serving website if you're not so clued in on the latest trends. And the best part? You won't have to spend a dime.

read more below...

Take the Single-Serving Website Challenge Sponsored by Website Magazine!

Some of the best resources to track current events and get a pulse on what will ultimately sell or attract consumers to this destination are available in Google (specifically Google Trends) and Twitter (specifically Twitter Search). There are many alternatives including WordTracker's Top 300 surging keyword report, popular magazines (who often have a pulse on what's hot, ahem...) or Yahoo! Answers. These resources provide you with clear and direct access to what's on the minds of consumers - from questions and conversations they might ask or share socially on Twitter (search.twitter.com) to search queries users might have related to your product (found in your analytics account).

Let's look at a practical example. The space shuttle landed today and it was one of Google Trends Top 100 active search queries this morning. If you operated a weblog about astronomy, were a technology vendor who helps make space flight possible or were an affiliate marketer who simply focused on reselling planet posters, you might be interested in creating a domain name such as WhenIsTheShuttleLanding.com (disclaimer - I bought this domain today and put up a very quick and simple site to showcase what could be done; total time was less than 20 minutes from start to finish).

How to Promote Single-Serving Websites?
Marketing of single-serving websites is often quite fun as it requires our promotional minds to be that much more focused on the end goal. It's also a lot easier because ultimately, we're only attempting to rank the site for an individual keyword phrase. The result is that it's easier to identify sites that might be interested in linking to these single-serving sites as they have a single purpose, which ultimately will be shared by more than just you the creator.

Promoting a single-serving website is no different than promoting a traditional site. Some ideas might include a comment campaign on theme-related weblogs, a press release about site availability, searching for Twitter users who tweeted on a related topic and sending them your link, joining Facebook groups on the particular topic or participating in forums and using the site within your signature line.

The greatest benefit of being able to promote a single-serving website is it will open doors that may have been closed to you previously. Develop a clear synergy between your primary site and the single-serving site and you'll increase the power of your brand, secure excellent search results positions on competitive keywords, generate some revenue and with any luck have some fun along the way.

Good luck on creating a single-serving website and don't forget to join Website Magazine's Single-Serving Website Challenge.
Your site might just be featured in the upcoming anniversary edition of Website Magazine!