Before we proceed any further, let’s answer the obvious question: what is a microsite? The answer is that is an individual webpage, or even a small cluster of webpages, designed to function as its own distinct entity within an existing website. Such sites tend to have their own domain name or subdomain, and are customarily used to promote products or services that it is undesirable to promote on the ‘main’ company website. There is, however, often a link to the microsite from the aforementioned main site.
Microsites are a great means of adding diversity to your website with fresh sections of content, and help to affirm that the users have entered a new and distinct section of your site – which may be used, for example, to advertise a new promotion. The child directory or subdomain of the microsite not only provides more room for content that is separate from your main site’s navigation, but also gives you another index on the major search engines, so as you can imagine, the right microsite can have major search engine optimisation (SEO) benefits.
But of course, these benefits – along with the many other benefits of microsites – are not likely to be realised unless you have invested in the very best services in microsite web design. By contacting the right professionals, you can have a microsite created that makes the most of its freedom from the rest of your company website. That means that your site can be rebranded, and it also affords you an opportunity to try out some very specific SEO techniques.
Microsites can be rapidly designed, developed and deployed, which makes them a great choice for those firms that have products or services that they would like to promote in a short time frame. It is a more cost-effective means of establishing a fast web presence for such products or services, while also enhancing your search engine rankings. Microsites aren’t just used for the publication of products or services in the conventional manner, with competitions, articles, interactive media, quizzes, offers and promotions also all being common features.
With microsites, you can promote products or services that might not have anything to do with each other, and that it therefore makes less sense to feature on one website. They make great financial sense to small and medium sized companies in particular, not to mention Internet start-ups, as they allow you to quickly reach and specifically target a particular audience.
As well as contacting a professional web design company for microsite services, you have the option of searching online for templates… which may suffice if your company has fairly typical needs. These days, though, firms with true online ambition tend to have rather more complicated requirements, which is why it makes so much sense to contact an experienced and capable low cost web design specialist which knows how to create the most tailored solution.
Like any other kind of website, a microsite needs to look good, provide plenty of relevant information and be easy to navigate… and the right web design company can help you to achieve all of these objectives.
Darren Ingrams is a web designer with Rake Mark Design.
