What is a Microsite?

If you have a business, you need a website- right?

Not necessarily, especially when your budget is tight and you’re not sure where to start

Microsites are the perfect solution

Just dissect the word Microsite as “Micro” and “site” and you will find the literal meaning of it.

Microsite is either an individual webpage or a small group of webpages with its own unique content and domain.

These sites are often brand-specific and are used to promote individual products, events, or campaigns for a specific target market.

Note that, a microsite is not a landing page but is a sub-site built for a time-limited digital marketing campaign

Benefits of Microsite

Microsites offer a couple of benefits on its way to accomplish a number of business needs

And, hence the lifespan of a microsite can be decided on the basis of how long a campaign is run by the business

Greater Design Control

Microsite is a good way to design a visual language while communicating with a specific user; especially when the main website addresses a diverse set of audience

The flexibility to tie the marketing material of a specific campaign with existing website can be easily achieved via microsites

Unique Content

Since microsite has its own domain and webpage, the focus of the design and copy can be emphasised entirely on the new product, a specific campaign.

Microsites are perfect for targeting customers with specific interests because it provides the content, they’re looking for and accelerates the virality potential

Without making the customers go through a lot of information

Opportunity to test your product or campaign

You can test the efficiency of the product or a campaign via microsite with a smaller budget before taking it to next level

While testing the feasibility, you can identify which aspect is attractive to the target market in a controlled environment

So that you can optimise your product or campaign before investing heaps of money in it

SEO Boost

Microsite is a website with its own unique URL, as microsites are product or service specific,

it comes with a memorable URL, making it easier for visitors to find it thus boosting your search engine rankings.

Downsides of a microsite

Additional costs

While microsites seem like a nimble solution when compared to main business website,

you need to consider the additional costs around it, such as design and maintenance costs

Do I really need a microsite?

Now that you know what microsites are, you must be wondering if your business needs it?

You can use microsites when:

  • You want to post content that emphasises only on one product
  • You wish to control visitors’ behaviour on your website to achieve desired outcome, such as downloading content or product purchase
  • You have a specific service or a product that you want to separate from the rest of your business’ offering

If you are planning to build a microsite, here’s a checklist to make sure that you have an effective microsite

  • Well-defined focus
  • Clear segregation with main website
  • Well-defined sales funnel
  • Definite target audience

Here’s a good example of a microsite

Spotify created microsites to target each user’s year in music taste by offering recommendations based on user’s listening experience.

This campaign delivered an integrated experience as no single microsite is like another.

(Source: ReallyGoodUX)

(Source: ReallyGoodUX)

(Source: ReallyGoodUX)

Here are some of our favourite articles for more information;

  1. What Is a Microsite? 10 Microsite Examples That Build Brand Awareness
  2. 11 of the Best Microsite Examples We’ve Ever Seen
  3. 6 Powerful Benefits of a Microsite for More Traffic
  4. What is a Microsite (and Do you need one)?