Today, businesses of all sizes need a truly effective online presence in order to keep up with the ever-changing digital landscape and be able to scale effectively as their business grows.
For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), a full-scale website build-out can be overwhelming, costly, and sometimes, not even entirely necessary. This is where microsites come in, offering these types of businesses a powerful solution that balances professionalism, efficiency, and affordability; they meet the needs of SMBs without over-complicating the process or maxing out the budget.
Let's explore the benefits of microsites and how IronGlove Studio can be a partner to SMBs to bring these projects to life in 2025.
What IS a “microsite”?
Unlike a full-scale website, a microsite typically has fewer pages and a streamlined design, making it ideal for businesses that need a professional online presence without the complexity of a larger site. It’s compact, focused, and simply fulfills the needs of SMBs looking to build out their online presence.
For example, let’s say you are a local brick-and-mortar florist that’s been in your town for over 50 years. Much of your business, historically, has probably been through word-of-mouth, but there’s still business being lost by not being online. A simple microsite could fulfill this need and make it simple for you to manage and add pages as needed, but without all of the excess features or pages that might not be necessary for your business type.
Our Microsite Project with SCCBRC
Our team recently completed a microsite build for the South Clackamas Business Resource Center (BRC), showcasing the efficiency and effectiveness of this microsite approach.
The BRC is a vital hub for business support, resources, and training opportunities in South Clackamas County, so it was necessary to quickly build out a microsite that allowed them to highlight local grants, scholarship opportunities, and events.
At a high-level, the process for completing the microsite involved:
- Solutions that truly understand Pacific Northwest business culture and challenges
- Enterprise-level capabilities scaled perfectly for SMB needs
- Data-driven strategies backed by our in-house expertise
- Custom AI and software solutions that respect data sovereignty
- A genuine commitment to your business's long-term success
Our streamlined team, consisting primarily of a project manager, content manager, designer, and web developer, worked collaboratively to ensure a smooth, easy process. We leverage a suite of tools and platforms that allow us the most effective and efficient communication and collaboration both externally with the client, and internally as a team.
One of the most significant advantages of building a microsite is the quicker turnaround time. This fast development allows businesses to build up their online presence quickly and start reaping the benefits sooner. For the BRC, once we had all content and pages aligned for the microsite, we were able to complete the entire project in approximately one month.
Advantages of a Custom Microsite
- It's a Cost-Effective Solution: For SMBs with smaller budgets, a microsite offers a professional online presence at a fraction of the cost of a full-scale website. This makes it an ideal solution for "the little guys" who want to compete in the digital space without completely breaking the bank.
- Focused Content and Messaging: A microsite allows businesses to deliver a clear, concise message without the distractions often found on larger websites with tons of pages and tabs for readers to search through. For the BRC project, this meant highlighting their core resources prominently, making it easy for visitors to find the information they need, quicker.
- Improved User Experience: With fewer pages and a streamlined, clean design, microsites often provide a better user experience. Visitors can quickly navigate to the specific information they need, leading to higher user engagement and potential conversions.
- SEO Benefits: A well-optimized microsite can improve search engine rankings for specific keywords related to your business's niche. This targeted approach can help SMBs compete more effectively in local search results. Remember our example earlier with the local florist? Being able to expand their online reach and build out their presence beyond their brick-and-mortar store through leveraging a simple microsite could create huge, positive impacts for their growth and customer base.
- Flexability and Scalability: As businesses grow, microsites can be easily expanded or integrated into larger websites as needed. Once you build a microsite, there’s no saying you can’t expand or leave it as is, it simply gives you something to build your presence and scale as you need to, whatever that looks like. This scalability ensures that your initial investment continues to provide value as your company evolves.
- Fast Deployment for Time-Sensitive Campaigns: For businesses looking to launch time-sensitive campaigns or promotions, microsites offer the perfect solution. They can be quickly developed and deployed, allowing you to capitalize on market opportunities swiftly.
As we look to expand our portfolio of microsite projects this year, we're excited about the opportunity to help more SMBs leverage this powerful tool! Whether it's a dedicated landing page, one-page site, or a compact multi-page website, microsites offer a way for businesses of all sizes to shine online.
If you're an SMB looking to elevate your online presence without the complexity and cost of a full-scale website, consider the benefits of a custom microsite and reach out to our team today to get started. It might just be the tool you need to help your business grow and thrive further in 2025 (and beyond).
