You’ve probably heard of the term “microsite” by now. If not, it’s probably time you should have. In case you’re wondering how to create a microsite, you’re in the right place. Here, we’ll outline everything you need to know about creating a profitable microsite – from coming up with an idea to generating sales and making money online.
The Basics Of Microsites
If you’ve ever shopped online, you may have come across a microsite, or mini-website. Typically, microsites are bite-sized versions of the main site – complete with their own mini-storefront and, often, a call-to-action (CTA) button that allows the visitor to take some action (e.g., make a purchase, fill out a form, or click a link).
Whether you’re creating a microsite for a client or for your own business purposes, you have to bear in mind that you’re competing for attention with several other websites and content creators. So, to ensure that people come back for more, you have to keep the experience unique, interesting, and – most importantly – profitable.
Step 1: Come Up With An Idea
This is the most important step, as you won’t have any idea of what microsite you should build until you come up with a brilliant idea. However, brainstorming ideas is easier said than done. According to HubSpot Blogs research, only 23% of businesses are able to come up with a creative idea every month while 53% struggle with it.
The good thing is that you don’t have to – in fact, not necessarily. As long as you keep an open mind and don’t get too attached to your initial idea, you can easily come up with dozens of brilliant websites, each with a unique and profitable idea.
Step 2: Generate Sales
The second step in the process is to figure out how to generate sales from your microsite. You don’t necessarily need to have a sales team to do this. With a little know-how, you can easily go from zero to hero with just a few keystrokes. Let’s take a look.
Pricing
One of the most significant factors that dictate whether a site will be profitable or not is the pricing. If you want to make money off a microsite, you have to charge a price for it. People are more likely to buy products and services that cost more as opposed to cheaper alternatives. For example, if you’re selling a $100 bottle of wine, you’ll probably lose a lot of money if you sell it for $10. But if you increase the price to $20, you’ll have better chances of turning a profit. Thanks to inflation and discounts, the cost of living keeps going up – and up. So, if you want to be able to sell your wares profitably, you might want to consider raising your prices. It might not be the most glamorous choice, but it could be the most profitable one.
Promotion
Once you have sales, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work promoting your product or service. The best way to do this is via online marketing, specifically SEO and PPC. These are the two most effective, popular, and, in case you’re wondering, the most profitable forms of online marketing.
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In case you’re wondering, SEO is the practice of altering web content, such as keywords and headlines, to get higher rankings on search engines like Google.
If you’re running an eCommerce store, you can utilize SEO to enhance the customer experience by ensuring that their orders are delivered quickly and that the items they’re searching for are displayed at the top of the results.
PPC stands for “pay per click.” In case you’re wondering, a PPC ad is an advertisement that’ll pop up on the sidebar of a website when someone clicks on it – usually for free. When someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays the site a fee (per click). You can use PPC ads to draw attention to your microsite and encourage people to visit it. When someone clicks on an ad, they usually end up at the site. So, in a way, you’re paying for the traffic.
Step 3: Analyze The Results
The third step is to take a step back and analyze the results of your efforts. Unless you’ve been doing this for a while, it’ll be hard to tell how effective your microsite has been without getting some sort of measuring device, such as a GA (Google Analytics) account or a Hotjar account.
The good thing is that you can use free tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar to track the results of your microsite. Doing this will help you figure out what’s working and what isn’t, as well as how much money you’re actually making or losing.
You’ll want to study traffic coming from different countries, time zones, and devices. This will help you understand the optimal functioning of your site and allow you to make adjustments as needed. For example, if you notice that one of your key performance indicators (KPIs) – a measure of the success of a particular strategy – is a particular country, you might want to consider re-targeting your content or expanding your efforts into other parts of the world.
Step 4: Keep Optimizing
Finally, let’s not forget about step four: keep optimizing! This is the step where you, as the microsite owner, make sure that your content continues to generate sales and leads. So, you have to continue tweaking your offers and deals, adjusting your pricing, and experimenting with new marketing strategies, all without losing sight of your original goal: generating sales.
With just a few steps, you can easily create a profitable microsite. Just keep in mind the golden rule of digital marketing: if it ain’t money, it ain’t worth it.