What is a microsite?
 
A microsite or a minisite refers generally refers to a smaller website that is an off shoot of the parent website. Microsites are considered to be a separate entity because they may present information that are different from that present in the main website. These microsites or mini websites are designed keeping only one objective in mind and they focus solely on one product or service. The goal behind creating a microsite is to engage those users or prospective customers who are looking for detailed information that are extremely specific. Microsites also link back to the parent website so that the visitors can have access to information about all other products or services offered by the company.  Online buyers generally have a very strict criterion before making a buying decision. Microsites are useful for the companies to target these online shoppers. When coupled with other marketing strategies, a well crafted microsite can help increase the return on investment to a great extent. 
 
How to Plan for a Microsite?
Designing a microsite may appear to be an easy task to execute, but the reality is far from that. While creating a microsite, many factors need to be taken into account before starting the designing. Goals, audience, contents, color schemes, and usability are the most significant points to be considered while planning for a microsite.
 
1. Intriguing Design:
Buyers start rating the products and services much before they have actually used them to find out their performance. This rating is done purely on the basis of how attractive it looks. Therefore, the microsites must have a design that intrigues the visitors sufficiently to compel them to read further about the product or service. This will definitely increase the chances of a sale substantially. However, it is very important to remember that the necessity for an attractive design does not decrease the value of quality text. The relevance of the contents for the search engines relies equally on the text.
 
2. Engaging Punchline:
Online shoppers visit plenty of websites while looking for a product and service and immediately leave a site that fails to create an appeal in the very first appearance.  Therefore, you only have a couple of seconds to grab the attention of the visitors who come to your microsite looking for a product or service. Along with an intriguing design, a strong punchline is also equally important because it conveys your message to the prospective buyers as soon as they look at it. This way, you can send across your message immediately to make sure that do not leave in a hurry. This is half the battle won, as far as making a sale is concerned.
 
3. Declutter:
While creating a microsite, there is always a temptation to tell the visitors everything about your product or service.  However, it does nothing other than satisfying your personal preferences.  The layout of a microsite must be clean, simple, and well defined. Your microsite must have the punchline in its face, a pleasing design, and a well placed call to action button. Make it intuitive yet simple so that the visitors easily understand where to go next.   

What Should a Microsite Do?
The microsite should be engaging and make the information handy and easily understandable. With the increasing popularity of social networking, your ability to share your business information with the social networking sites becomes a must.