When do you have to use microsites?
Your website may have hundreds of landing pages with products, e-books, blog posts, and videos. While an organized site architecture should allow visitors to easily navigate your website, sometimes it's better to keep things even simpler.
"Microsites" can help here.
True to its name, a microsite is like a mini website for your branded content. Brands often create these websites for a specific event or campaign.
A microsite can be useful because visitors can view information about an event or campaign in one place without having to click through an entire site.
This article explains how to come up with ideas for microsites and create one.
What is a microsite?
A microsite is a branded website or a small group of web pages. It's usually located outside of the company's main website or branded URL. The microsite can have its own domain, but it can also exist as a subdomain of your company's website.
Brands have used microsites for marketing campaigns or brand awareness.
Many brands create microsites so that their audiences can focus on a specific event, campaign, or content. If these promotional materials were placed on the main website, they could get lost in the crowd.
However, some brands use microsites to regularly post certain types of content, such as: B. Online niche magazines.
Microsites vs. Websites: What's the Difference?
In the simplest sense, a website is a big hub that gives viewers all kinds of information about your brand – your brand story, your products, etc. – while microsites are smaller and have more targeted content. The primary website is likely what people come across when searching for your brand, while the microsite is what they find when they are looking for information on a specific aspect of your brand that you created this single website for.
For example, the main Patagonia website allows viewers to shop, learn more about their activism, and more.
In contrast, their Blue Heart microsite aims to raise awareness of the dams in the Balkans – which Patagonia wants to show that they harm the surrounding ecosystem and residents.
Advantages and disadvantages of microsites
Like almost everything in the marketing world, microsites have advantages and disadvantages.
Pros: Microsites can help visitors focus on your marketing campaigns
Of course, you can create a specific banner on your homepage to start your new campaign. Unfortunately, many users can be distracted by the surrounding tabs, links, and product pages.
The average human attention span is only eight seconds.
Even if you have an extensive campaign-related banner on your homepage, surrounding website elements can distract visitors. Hence less awareness and less participation.
By redirecting visitors to a specific microsite, you can completely grab their attention.
It also forces people to focus on your campaign, occasion, or event.
The main homepage is based on the aesthetics of the campaign. The surrounding tabs and links contain specific information to help raise awareness. With other website elements removed, visitors can focus on your call-to-action or marketing campaign.
Con: Microsites could be confusing Visitors
Once you know the edge advantages of a microsite, you may be tempted to launch several so that several campaigns can be highlighted.
Caution. Microsites must be used with care.
A new user who comes across your brand for the first time may unexpectedly reach your microsite.
These first-time visitors can get campaign-specific information without finding the details they were originally looking for. If they can't get to your main website easily, they may opt for another purchase.
This drawback is an additional factor to consider as microsites can be costly between your domain, design, maintenance, and so much more. You want to make sure you're getting a good ROI on your microsites.
This is how you come up with ideas for your microsite
Creating a successful microsite is usually not as big of an undertaking as it sounds – as long as you know the right steps.
Here are those steps.
1. Create a buyer personality
As with any marketing campaign you've launched in the past, you need to create buyer personalities.
A buyer personality helps you visualize the target audience for your microsite.
Here are a few questions to consider:
- Who will visit your microsite?
- Why are you going to visit the microsite?
- What makes them want to participate in your microsite's campaign or event?
- How will you get your target audience to visit your microsite?
The ideal marketing person will provide an overview of the background, demographics, goals, interests, and aspirations of your target market. A detailed persona gives you an even better understanding of the needs and aspirations of your target audience.
The result could look something like this:
2. Define the goals of your microsite
The SMART goal process helps in setting goals. The acronym stands for
specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
Let's say your overall goal is to create a microsite to promote your new line of products.
A good starting point is to determine the specific goals that you want to achieve by launching the microsite. What are your ideal sales or quarterly sales? How many unique visitors do you want to attract?
For example, a specific goal could be: "I want to attract 100 unique visitors to my microsite per week."
This is a clear and measurable goal that you can monitor every week and that can help you determine if your microsite is effectively meeting the goals you have set for your business.
3. Find existing examples for microsites
Take a look at existing microsites for inspiration for your microsite.
According to Zesty, there are generally three types of microsites:
Informative microsites
This type aims to educate visitors about a specific campaign, event, or reason.
For example, Team Rubicon's microsite hopes to raise awareness of the plight of the Gulf Coast flood victims.
Interactive microsites
These encourage engagement in fun activities or campaigns.
The Spotify “Year in Music” microsite is personalized based on the visitor's listening habits. It contains a personalized summary of your favorite songs or artists from the past year. This could spark some fond memories and make your listeners sharper on the return.
E-commerce Microsites
These websites sell services or products to consumers.
Bentley Motors has launched a microsite with which visitors can virtually explore their new luxury Bentley Bentayga. Car enthusiasts have the option to request a test drive, digitally customize a Bentley Bentayga, or learn more about the vehicle.
I've put together a longer list of more microsite examples a little further down this page to help you out.
How do you create a microsite?
After you have a clear vision for your microsite, it's time to create your own.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Get a domain and hosting service for your microsite
The first step is to get a domain name and hosting service for your microsite.
By this point, you probably have some name ideas – or at least keywords – for your microsite. You can use a tool like Domainsbot to see if these domain names are available or to get suggestions based on your keywords. I used "Social Media SEO" to get the following recommendations:
Another trick is to consider buying expired domains. This way you can redirect the traffic from the old domain to your microsite.
Visit expireddomains.net to find expired domain names. Again I searched for "Social Media SEO:"
You should also go for a .com domain if you are targeting a global market. However, a country extension (i.e. .uk or .au) will also work if you are targeting a local market.
Depending on your host, they may be able to sell you your domain through their website (often through a third party). You can also purchase your domain from a separate site like Namecheap.
2. Design your microsite
You've already searched for microsite examples to see what works and what doesn't. Now it's time to work alone.
Meet with your marketing team, designers, and developers to plan the format for your microsite.
Let's take a look at the basics to consider:
- Page number: Is one page enough to provide the information or do you need multiple pages to achieve your goals?
- Gamification: Does your website use interactive elements to tell a story?
- navigation: Do users navigate the site by clicking, scrolling, or zooming in?
- Media: Will the microsite contain blog posts, videos, or pictures? How do you visualize the final appearance of your microsite?
- Call to action: Where are you going to place the CTA and how are you going to pop it out for users?
If you want to keep the look and feel of your brand, you can use branding elements that are similar to your main website. You can also opt for something different if you want to promote a specific event or new product launch.
However, it is best not to give up on your brand. You don't want users to forget who invites them to see your website advertised.
3. Create content for your microsite
You want to involve your team in this step as well. Here are some questions to discuss with them:
- What content is best for your website i.e. what types of media will you be using?
- What tone will you use to interact with your target audience?
- How will your microsite encourage users to take action?
When you've decided on a direction, assign content and go!
4. Launch, update, and promote your microsite
Once you've launched your website, you need to keep things fresh and attract new visitors.
If it makes sense, update the content regularly, especially if you use blogs. Even if you are using this to promote an event and the information does not change significantly, use the feedback from the audience, e.g. B. through a contact form to make sure the information is useful and clear. Possibly use your input to create an FAQ page as well.
And of course, you need to promote your website in order to increase traffic. Use your existing social media to let others know about your microsite, and consider creating separate social media or event pages for the website itself.
Also, advertise it using traditional methods that you use for your other pages, such as: B. Pay per click. If you have a brick and mortar business, use the physical strategies above.
Manage SEO for microsites
Just like on your main website, you want to manage the SEO for your microsite too.
After all, you want it to rank in search results and make it easy for users to find.
Let's take a look at some SEO tricks you can do:
Optimize your microsite for SEO
This means that you need to focus on on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO for your microsite.
We strongly recommend watching our video on "The Ultimate SEO Checklist for New Websites" so you can get your microsites on Google.
Create great content on your microsite
The quality of your content is of vital importance. This applies to microsites as well as your primary site.
In addition to optimizing for keywords, the content of your microsite must be relevant, engaging and clear. Otherwise, visitors will not be motivated to stay on your microsite for long.
So take the time to create valuable content.
What are some good examples of microsites?
Microsites can be used to achieve various goals. Some companies have used microsites to reach a specific target group or to raise awareness for a campaign. In the meantime, other brands have been using them to provide personalized content or invite users to take part in a specific action.
For a helping of inspiration, here are some fantastic microsites:
future from Car Sharing Microsite
"Future of Car Sharing" is a collaboration between Collaborative Fund and Hyperkat with the support of Startup American Partnership. This microsite is intended to inform readers about the advantages of car sharing. Visitors can scroll left to right to find out more about car sharing types and how environmentally friendly they are.
The story begins with the types of car sharing and the different companies and nonprofit groups that make it possible. On the way you will find statistics and the main reasons for participating.
This microsite is useful because it uses easy-to-understand images and infographics to convey information. Users can hover in each figure to learn more.
Designed by Levi's microsite
"Styled by Levi & # 39; s", operated (of course) by Levi & # 39; s, is a microsite where users can take a quiz about their style preferences.
After completing the quiz, users will be prompted to log into their Pinterest accounts to receive a personalized Pinterest shippable board based on their choices.
When shopping for clothes online, everything is visual. According to Current Daily, the Pinterest boards can send customers to Styled by Levi's chatbot and customer service. The platform also uses previous browser data from customers to generate personalized looks.
Thanks to the user experience of this microsite and the collaboration with Pinterest, customers often find it easy to see Levi's products that match their styles.
3. My creative type
Adobe enables users to take an interactive quiz on their My Creative Type microsite to learn more about their unique creative types.
Users are asked to answer abstract questions that match creative features. After answering a question, users can engage in interactive ASMR elements or animations and make the quiz an even more immersive experience.
At the end of the quiz, users can learn their creative strengths, untapped potential, and the greatest challenges they face in their creative journeys.
Conclusion
If you want to create a microsite, think about the goals you want to achieve. Then create compelling content to encourage engagement.
Create microsites with eye-catching designs and seamless experiences to further engage users.
If you know the right steps, you too can design a microsite that your target audience will love.
How will you use microsites?