Microsite vs Website: Which One is for You?

If like me it’s been a while that you’ve been making websites, you’ll remember poeple talking about “niches”. Find your niche, and the magic doors of SEO will open up to you.

It’s -of course- not that simple. Finding a niche does not mean you know the best way of serving it.

Let’s look at the difference between Microsites and Websites, and which one is best for which use case.

What is a microsite, and why are they everywhere now?

A microsite is a single-purpose domain that is intended to generate its owner passive income. You’ll find tons when you search for things like “Doc to PDF”, or “PNG to JPEG”.

The perfect microsite doesn’t take too long to set up and doesn’t require a lot of maintenance.

If you think about it, the cost of buying a domain and a basic hosting plan today is around $70-$200.

If you take one day off and build a microsite that will generate as little $100/month, that means that each year you will be making $1000 in profit ($1200-$200). If you keep the microsite for three years, that’s $3000. $3000 for one day’s of work. Not freaking bad.

A microsite is great for:

• Single purpose ideas: If you’re building a website that will have more than one feature, then you’re building a website, not a microsite. A microsite’s only feature is in the domain name.
• Trying out monetization outlets, such as ads or affiliate marketing
• Selling one thing, like eBooks: if you already have an ebook, there’s no point in redoing the whole website for it with your portfolio, blog posts, etc.
• Offering solutions that people look for regularily: converting files, removing backgrounds off images, finding things to copy (such as emojis), etc.

A Website is great for:
Everything else.