What is a mini website?
A mini website does what it says on the tin really. It’s a website… but mini. A bite-sized web presence for your brand. Bite-sized, yet powerful.
Mini websites are perfect if you’re just starting out without tonnes of content, or if you’re not quite ready to invest in an all-singing-all-dancing website.
Our mini website service (also known as Website in a Week) includes a custom homepage design and one additional page. That could be an About page, a Service page, or pretty much anything you like. Our mini website clients can also reuse our page designs to add new pages in the future and continue to grow their website.
What’s the difference between a mini website and bespoke website design?
When clients get in touch for the first time they often ask us what the difference is between a mini website and bespoke website design – and which one is right for them.
I’ve listed the main differences between the two services below:
Mini websites:
- Can be turned around in just one week
- Are made up of 1-2 pages
- You need to have your branding, images and content ready to go before your website project begins
- Have an optional email marketing integration
- Include prep workbooks, website training and WhatsApp support
- £2,000 investment
Bespoke website design:
- Have a usual turnaround time of 6-12 weeks depending on the size of the project
- Can include as many pages as you like
- Can include brand identity, personal branding photography and copywriting services as add-ons
- Can choose from a number of optional integrations including email marketing, appointment scheduling, course management and more
- Include prep workbooks, website training and WhatsApp support
- Start from £4,000 investment
The goals
Now we understand what a mini website is, allow me to introduce you to our lovely client… Marie Morice.
Marie is a That’s Her Business veteran. We launched her first sex coaching website Lilith Your Life on our bespoke website design service. So, that was full branding, images, copy and website – literally the full works.
And we all loved working together so much that Marie just keeps coming back for more. Since her first launch, she’s worked with our copywriter Amy on a ghostwriting project. Then of course we created a mini website for that very book…. Manhunting in Manhattan.
And now Marie is back for her third website (did we mention we really love working together). This one is a mini website that encompasses all of Marie’s offerings under one digital roof.
Marie has been getting a fair few speaking gigs and press articles recently so the goal was to have a website under her own name, that would come up when people Googled her, and link out to her sex coaching, book, podcasts, speaking opportunities and so on.
The prep work
As with any small business web design project, there’s always a bit of prep work to do. This is just to make sure we’ve got everything we need before we get started and everything can go off without a hitch. And because a mini website is a web design only service, we need all the branding files, images and website content in advance.
Marie is a past Brimful of Branding client of ours which means we’ve already nailed her female empowerment coach branding AND she has a gorgeous bank of images from her personal branding photography shoot. So, we just needed to get the content sorted and we were good to go.
All of our mini website clients get access to our DIY Your Copy and Finding Your Tone of Voice workbooks. So Marie typed up her content and Amy looked over it for good measure and then we were off!
The mini website design process
Day 1 – Set up
On the first day, as the web designer of our clan, I began setting up Marie’s website. I made sure I had access to Marie’s new domain via GoDaddy. I pointed the domain to our servers and then began creating all the behind the scenes bits.
I uploaded Marie’s branding and fonts, and created custom styles for headings, buttons, body copy, forms, and designed the headers and footers. All with Marie’s style and goals in mind.
Day 2 – Mini website design
My favourite bit. I always begin by mocking up a rough wireframe to make sure I’ve got all the content in the right places and that the layout makes sense for the user’s journey through the website. I also start to come up with ideas for how we can customise every last element so everything seamlessly aligns with the brand at this point.
Once I’m happy with the wireframe, I move on to actually building the website. This is where the magic really happens and the whole thing comes to life. I worked from my wireframe in Elementor and start with the homepage. The homepage is arguably the most important page – your shop window – so I make sure I get this perfect before I move onto the next page.
As I work I test my designs on desktop, tablet and mobile to ensure the design is website responsive. On Marie’s site this meant ensuring a sticky image of her in a left hand column still looked the part on mobile, as well some other tweaks. Websites should be just as easy to use and scan on mobile as they are on desktop – if not more.
Everytime I get to this point I impress myself that I can get so much done in a day. But that’s what bloody good prep and huge whack of experience will get ya!
Day 3 – Feedback
I sent the first draft of the mini website to Marie to review while my SEO and website tester Jack got to work testing the website to make sure everything works as intended – again making sure this is across all devices. Jack also jumps in with his SEO brain at this point and makes sure we’re hitting best practices for search engines 🤓
Day 4 – Revisions
Marie LOVED her new website and just had a few tweaks to the copy and images to get it perfect. I worked through the changes… including photoshopping one of Marie’s images of her book to clean up some dirty grout (I really wish it was that easy when I’m cleaning the bathroom 🙄)
Day 5 – Final tweaks and mini website launch!
On the final day, Marie had a couple of final tweaks she wanted to make including adding sources to the quotes we featured and an extra event adding that she’d just got info for. And then it was time for launch!
We went live and Marie could start using her new mini website. She’s had amazing feedback so far and she’s already on page one of Google for her name – despite having a huge amount of other content online about her work! All of her goals achieved… in just one week.
Marie’s finished mini website
And now you’re probably wondering, “what does Marie’s mini website look like?”
Well, here’s a short screen grab (or head to mariemorice.co.uk for full lowdown)…
And here’s what Marie had to say about it…
What happens post-launch
After the launch of any website project we’ll send you a custom website training video so you can easily edit your website yourself going forward. We’ll also tell you how you can use your web pages as templates, so you can continue to add to your website and it can grow as you do.
You also need to sign-up for a website hosting package to keep your website online. Website hosting is like paying rent for the space your website takes up on a server.
We offer a few levels of service and Marie is on a website maintenance package which covers all 3 of her websites. So we’re on hand to help her look after her websites and keep them up to date on a monthly basis 💖
If you like the look of Marie’s website and fancy a mini website for your small business you can book online, or drop us a message to chat more about your requirements.
