Microsites: A Macro Idea

A microsite (sometimes known as a minisite) generally refers to a small website that is an offshoot of its parent website. It is considered a separate entity as it may present different information and even have a different URL. For example, an art gallery will have its main website but when they have a special exhibition they may create a microsite with specific information on the art pieces in that exhibition. This microsite would normally be linked from the home page.

Microsites offer various advantages. If you already have a brand for which a website already exists, then a microsite would help you produce more natural or organic traffic for your current brand. With the prevalence of keyword contextual advertising, (more commonly referred to as Pay per click or PPC), microsites may be created specifically to carry such contextual advertising. Or along a similar tactic, microsites are also created in order to specifically carry topic-specific, keyword-rich content with the goal of having search engines rank them highly when search engine users seek such content topics.

For example, if you have a particular website for a brand and you make inter-related microsites for products made by that brand, you will generate more specific traffic, by having a keyword optimized microsite for all the various products offered by the brand. In this way, you can have almost 20% more traffic flowing online towards your products within days!