Microsite
Definition
A microsite is a site kept deliberately apart from the main one. The usual reasons: a campaign with a look that would fight the brand's templates, a conference needing its own address on printed material, an annual report that should be browsable rather than downloaded, or a partnership where neither party's website is the right home. Structurally it is small — a landing page and two to five others — and it is often built as plain static files, because six pages do not justify a content management system. Lifespan is what really marks it out: a microsite is made for a season and then archived or taken down, which is a decision worth making at the start rather than in two years when nobody remembers who owns the domain.
Why It Matters
Waiting for a slot in the main site's release queue is the most common reason these exist, and a campaign that has to ship before a trade show cannot wait for one. Running separately also means the campaign cannot break the main site, and the main site's deploys cannot break the campaign. The bill arrives later, because microsites accumulate: each is a domain to renew, a certificate to keep valid and a page that will eventually say something untrue. The sensible discipline is to decide the end date at the same moment you decide the address.
How It Works
Give it an address of its own — either a subdomain of the main domain, which inherits the brand and needs one DNS record, or a separate domain when the thing genuinely stands alone. The subdomain is cheaper in every sense: one CNAME record, a certificate issued automatically, nothing extra to renew. Build it as static files and upload the folder; six pages of HTML, a stylesheet and some images need no build step and no server behind them. Set Open Graph tags on each page, so a link pasted into chat or posted socially shows a proper card rather than a bare address. When the campaign is over, either replace the index with a short page pointing at the main site or leave it up as a dated archive — but do not simply delete it while the address is still on printed material.
Real-World Example
A software company runs a two-day user conference at conf26.99helpers.site: agenda, speakers, venue, a registration button pointing at the ticketing platform, and the slide decks added afterwards. The main website is untouched throughout, and the address is short enough to print on a lanyard. Six weeks after the event the index becomes a recap page with the recordings on it, and stays there as the archive that next year's site links back to.
Common Mistakes
- ✕Copying the main site's content onto the microsite — two pages then compete for the same search term and neither does well
- ✕Leaving nobody responsible for the domain — microsites die quietly a year later when an unrecognised renewal invoice goes unpaid
- ✕Leaving a finished campaign live with no date on it — visitors read last spring's offer as if it were current
Related Terms
Landing Page
A page built for one purpose, which people reach directly from an ad, an email or a shared link. It is judged by the share of visitors who do the one thing it asks.
Coming Soon Page
A coming soon page is a single page standing in for something not launched yet — a product, a site, a shop — saying what it will be, roughly when, and how to be told. It exists so an address people have already heard about does not resolve to nothing.
Event Page
An event page is the single address that answers what, when, where and how to get in. Conferences, gigs, workshops and community meetups all need one, usually before anything else about the event exists.
Subdomain
A subdomain is a label placed in front of a domain you already control, such as docs.acme.com or acme-pitch.99helpers.site. It is a separate address that can point somewhere completely different from its parent.
Custom Domain
A custom domain is a name you own, pointed at content somebody else hosts, so visitors see files.acme.com instead of the provider's address. You keep the registration; the provider keeps the servers.
Put a file online in seconds
Drop in a document, an image, a page or a whole static website and share the link — free, with no build step and no server to set up.
Host a file free →