People have a hard time wrestling with how to make their website do everything they need it to. It needs to accurately present the company or brand in a way that is appealing and easy to navigate. Although, I must confess the more sites I go to the less I think people are really considering how their visitors can navigate their web property! But, that’s a topic for another day.

Your website is used as a 24/7 resource. It allows customers to buy products, download information, watch videos, sign up for webcasts and do much more. In many cases, your website is the first impression a person investigating your company or product will have. In most cases, once people show up on your homepage, they can find their way around your site from there. But what about when you have a clear idea of where you want that traffic to go? How do you take a website and make it able to quickly get people to the information you want them to see? IMHO that is where the much referenced but rarely defined microsite comes into play.

The Microsite:

My definition: The microsite is a mini website that is created to serve a specific need. It is not a replacement for a good, well thought out website, but it does have a noticeable impact on creating a place that marketing can drive visitors to.

Can be use for: Product Launches, Giveaways, Announcements, Outreach to Specific Customer Groups, Events, Demos, A way to collect information and feedback

Fun Fact/ Best Practices:

• It is usually no more than 5-7 pages and is created to give flexibility in design and to create an online environment where users can navigate around one central topic without worrying about them being navigated away from the experience.
• You can have fun with a microsite. It is less of a financial commitment than a full website and allows you to test some new design and user interface solutions.
• A good microsite has a specific clearly defined mission. It could be to sell a product, get users to submit photos, encourage new enrollment at a college or to create an online information portal around an event.
• It can reside within a site or it can have it’s own unique URL.
• Microsites can stay completely within a site and brand. See Carpathia Hosting’s CGS for an example of a Microsite housed within a larger site. Notice the micro site sub-navigation on the right.
• Or they can have their own unique URL with a separate look and feel that only picks up elements of the parent company’s branding. See AlwaysOn/InstantOn to see an example of this.

Make sure there is a good reason for people to visit the site! Nothing worse than getting the traffic only to let them down once you get them to your site.

Other uses or disagreements with my vision of the microsite? Feel free to post a comment!

(Full disclosure: Carpathia Hosting is a client of Pyxl)