Microsite

What is a microsite?

A microsite is a small-scale website that businesses can use to promote an individual product, sub-brand, campaign, event, or competition. They can be made up of a single web page or a small cluster of pages.Microsites are hosted separately from a brand’s main website. They usually have their own unique domain names, but they can be hosted on a subdomain too. These simple sites don’t include ‘About us’ pages or information about brand values. They don’t usually have eCommerce functionality either. Instead, they feature informative, fun, or interactive content that aims to engage visitors.

Benefits

Microsites can help brands achieve a multitude of marketing goals. Whether they want to supercharge a product launch, generate leads, or target audience segments with specific content, microsites can help. Whether you want to build top-of-mind awareness for a new product or highlight a brand partnership, microsites can keep visitors focused on the information you want them to see. They won’t get distracted by an unrelated page or click on the wrong button. Instead, microsites allow brands to manage and monitor the consumer journey.

Because microsites concentrate on one particular product, brand, target market or promotional campaign, the analytics gathered are highly accurate and informative. Analyzing data from your main brand website will generally provide less conclusive results. This means microsites can be optimized for maximum impact. But a microsite is also the perfect medium for testing out new content. Brands can then use this data to make informed business decisions.

Disadvantages of a microsite

When implemented for the right reasons, a microsite benefits your brand in countless ways. But there are some downsides too.

It requires a lot of investment

Building a website from scratch requires significant time and money. You’ll need the help of designers, developers, and copywriters. Then there are ongoing costs like domain registration and site maintenance. While a microsite won’t require complex coding, it will cost more than adding pages to an existing brand website.

They’re only temporary

Once your event, campaign, or competition ends, the microsite you created is no longer useful. So you need to consider if it’s worth the investment.

Efforts

In the past, many microsites enjoyed SEO success. Brands dominated search results with multiple domains and used backlinks to boost their main site. But Google has adopted it. Today, microsites don’t often generate huge amounts of organic traffic. They may even compete with your main website for keywords and backlinks – especially if you duplicate content. That’s why modern microsite campaigns are often launched alongside paid advertising campaigns.

Use a microsite

We’ve already touched on lots of situations where microsites can prove useful. But here is an overview of what to consider before deciding to create one.

Is your content long-term or temporary

Microsites are ideal for one-off events, temporary advertising campaigns, and seasonal product promotions. Any content that doesn’t need to be on your brand’s main website year-round could be a contender.

Running an ad campaign alongside 

Microsites work particularly well as landing pages for PPC ads. That’s because brands can send prospects to a microsite related to the ad viewed. By providing relevant content and clear navigation, brands can keep visitors’ attention and nudge them to take action.

 Building awareness for a specific initiative

If you want to direct attention to a specific product, sub-brand, influencer collaboration, brand partnership, event, or any other company initiative, building a microsite might be the right choice.

Targeting a specific audience segment

If you’re creating content for a subset of your target audience, hosting this content on its own website is advisable. This will give your brand the freedom to create distinctive content that will appeal to this audience segment – without alienating other key demographics.

Is your content experimental

If you’re trying out something new, creating a microsite will allow you to accurately track the results without running the risk of ruining your main website’s user experience.

Create a microsite

The process of creating a microsite will vary depending on your brand’s goals and needs. But here are some general steps to follow.

Set out your objectives

Be clear about why you’re building a microsite and who it’s for. What do you want to achieve? Is a microsite the right solution? Have you created a buyer persona yet?

Choose a domain name

Be sure to buy a domain name that will appeal to your target audience. Will it stand out and be memorable enough for visitors to find again? Is it short enough to use offline?

Craft the content

Content is key when it comes to building a successful microsite. You need to connect with your target persona, while also considering how the keywords used could impact your brand’s main website. It may make sense to prioritize a niche keyword that won’t compete with your parent website.

Design your microsite

Your microsite should have a simple design that directs users toward a single CTA. But you can also get creative with color and visuals because you aren’t restricted by the branding of your parent brand’s website.

Connect your analytics and marketing tools

Because microsites provide in-depth insights into content performance and visitor behavior, hooking up your analytics tools of choice is essential. Integrating an A/B testing solution is a good idea too.