How microsites fit in with your other marketing tactics and why you should use them

Microsites make sense for all kinds of online businesses because they can be used to create a showcase for one product or service.  First came the landing page. Now with the popularity of "information product" marketing systems, everyone is exposed to the ease with which you can create specialized microsites.  That's all to the good.

But since I work with businesses who also use a lot of different tactics—blogs, websites, newsletters, facebook pages, etc. I see a bit of confusion. So, I thought it would be good to look at where microsites fit in to the equation for small businesses. 

First a working definition. 

A microsite is a 1 to several page site that most often:

• has it's own domain (or perhaps subdomain) separate from a main website
• is time limited
• has a tight focus on one product or service with buying information
• can be used to provide additional instructions, links to multimedia and editorial content
• can help to strenghten keyword value

Ok, so how do you know when to create a microsite for your product or service?  Focus on the distribution. Ask yourself whether this format will get this 'capsule' of information to a wider distribution than your website, blog, etc.   If you can find a way to take some 'nugget' and open it to a wider distribution, you'll have a great traffic builder (and money maker). 

You should also use it as a compliment to your other tactics by providing links to it.  But the main reason for creating it, is that it will drive new traffic.

Comments

[Seh]

Microsites for specific niches along with video seems to be growing in popularity as well. I create these types of sites as well. To create traffic I post to http://www.Adwido.com it works well because of their targeted keyword campaigns. This brings in boatloads of traffic for the specific niche of my microsite. Plus the account is Free.