5 Tricks to Treat Your Members with Microsites

Maybe you’ve heard about microsites, noticed they exist, but weren’t sure they were worth the investment. Especially with the rise in technology, these microsites are becoming more and more important for associations to implement. A study ran by marketingsherpa showed that 38% of microsites were very effective with reaching marketing initiatives and 54% were somewhat effective. But before we get carried away more data, in case you are not familiar, let’s discuss what a microsite is and how it works.

A microsite is essentially a smaller and independent site that usually links back to your parent page. These sites are mainly used for branding, event promotions, content marketing, and so on. To be clear, this means that it will have an independent domain, meaning you will have to register it. There are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part that is what a microsite comprises of. But now that you have heard what a microsite is, you must be asking again, why is it necessary and how can it benefit me and my association? Here are the five reasons why you should incorporate microsites into your association.

1. SEO Benefits

Think of your microsite as an additional link for your members or non-members to connect with your parent site. By creating this additional and “independent” site, you are spreading out your coverage area for people to get exposed. Since a microsite has its own URL, your association essentially have another website that prospects and where members can land on to learn about you. The microsite will contain an assortment of keyword-rich language specific to your chosen topics on the site, which is extremely valuable to Google and search engines. If you integrate a blog to your microsite, then this will increase your SEO value even more.

2.  Effective Branding Initiatives

Trying to brand on your parent site might get a little clustered with events, blogs, webinars, or whatever else your association may use. By consolidating your new webinar series into a microsite, for example, you are able to get better search engine results and also have the opportunity to make the site look amazing and more appealing to your members.

3. Cost Effective

You are on a tight marketing budget and all you have to promote your HUGE event coming up is yourself. Well, you are in luck. With the will and dedication to investing time into your microsite, you can develop a truly amazing promotion for your site while also benefiting your association on the search engine.

4. Testing Your Market

By taking the route of launching microsites, you can get a better understanding of what is working with your members. Trying different tactics and strategies for your microsites can allow you to test the market and reach your members better. Sure you can track the amount of views you get on your blog on your parent site and make changes according to the content. But by testing these new strategies on different sites you can more easily understand what your members are looking for from your association.

5. Focusing Your Content

Worried about putting out too much information for an event or service you are trying to promote for your association? By implementing a microsite to market and promote your specific event or service, you can create a small site that has in-depth pages that would normally act as a deterrent on your main website. This also gives you the ability to make it more interactive and personal to your members.

Take a look at what we have done at System Solutions Development with our Tech Guides Campaign and see how we were able to make the most out of our use of a microsite.

*Exciting news!  Our exclusive video, Three Web Strategies to Increase Active Member Engagement, is online.  Click here to watch this video, and learn a valuable technique to transform you association’s website into an experience your members can’t resist!

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