A microsite is a small website about one topic, separate from your main site. A renovation company publishes a guide to this year’s grants. A software company makes a free calculator. A recruiting firm publishes a salary survey. Each lives at its own address and sends interested visitors to the main business.
Done well, a microsite brings people you would not have reached otherwise. Done badly, it is a forgotten page that costs time and, at worst, makes search engines trust you less. This guide is about telling the two apart.
When a microsite helps
A microsite earns its place when the topic deserves a site of its own, and when your main site is a bad home for it. Good signs:
- People search for the topic, not for you. “2026 renovation grants” is searched by people who have never heard of your company. A clear, complete guide can meet them there.
- It is useful on its own. A calculator, a comparison, a checklist, a dataset. Something people would bookmark or share even if you were not selling anything.
- It has a different audience or tone. Your main site talks to buyers; a guide for students, or a tool for installers, may need a different voice.
- It has a life of its own. An event, a yearly survey, a campaign with a start and an end.
- Your main site is hard to change. If adding a section to the main site takes three months, a separate site may be the only realistic way to test an idea.
When it does not
Be honest about these cases. A microsite will not help when:
- It repeats your main site. Same services, same texts, a different address. Search engines see duplicates and show one, usually not the new one.
- It is made of thin pages. Fifty pages that each change one word (“plumber in Liège”, “plumber in Namur”…) with the same text around it. This is the pattern search engines work hardest to ignore.
- Nobody will maintain it. A guide with last year’s figures does more harm than no guide.
- The only goal is links. Building sites just to point links at your main site is a well-known trick, and search engines discount it.
If your topic fits on a page of your main site, a page on your main site is often the better choice: it benefits from the trust your domain already has.
Microsite or page on your main site?
| Question | Rather a page on your main site | Rather a microsite |
|---|---|---|
| Is the topic close to what you sell? | Yes, it is your offer | No, it is a wider question |
| Do people search it without knowing you? | Rarely | Often |
| Does it need its own look or tone? | No | Yes |
| Can you update the main site easily? | Yes | Not really |
| Will it be useful without your product? | Not much | Yes |
There is a middle way too: a subdomain like guide.your-company.com. It keeps your brand in the address while giving the project its own site.
How to do it well
One topic, covered properly
Pick one question and answer it better than anything else people can find. For a grants guide: who is eligible, the amounts, the work covered, how to apply, the deadlines, the common mistakes. Each of these can be a section or a page, with its own clear title.
Write for a person first. Plain sentences, the answer near the top, details below. Search engines have become good at telling useful pages from pages written for them.
Pages that each deserve to exist
Before adding a page, ask: would someone land on this page and be glad? A page per region is fine if the amounts, rules or contacts really differ by region. If only the name of the city changes, keep one page.
Clean technical basics
You do not need to be an expert, but check these:
- A clear title and description per page, written for people. They are what shows in search results.
- A share image and text, for when the page is posted on LinkedIn or Slack.
- One address per page, and a real “page not found” for the others.
- A sitemap, the list of your pages that search engines read.
- Fast pages, readable on a phone.
- A date on content that ages, and an update when things change.
Link to your main site, naturally
The point is to bring people to your business. Do it where it helps the reader: “Get your work estimated” on the page about the work, “Talk to an advisor” after the steps to apply. One clear link in the right place beats a banner on every page.
Linking from your main site to the microsite helps too, when it makes sense for your visitors: a “Guides” section, a mention in a related article.
Keep it alive
Put a reminder in your calendar. Figures change, rules change, links break. A microsite that is updated each year becomes a reference; one that is not quietly falls away.
Measure what matters
You do not need a complex setup to know if it works. Watch:
- Visitors over time, and where they come from (search, social, direct).
- Which pages people read, and which they leave fast.
- Clicks to your main site, the whole point.
- Contacts if the microsite has a form: quote requests, downloads, sign-ups.
Give it time. A new site rarely shows results in the first weeks; judge it after a few months, and compare with what the same effort would have given elsewhere.
A short checklist
- One topic people search for, which deserves its own site.
- Useful on its own, written for people.
- No duplicated pages, no near-identical pages.
- Titles, descriptions, share images, a sitemap, fast on a phone.
- Natural links to your main site where they help.
- Someone in charge of keeping it up to date.
- Visitors and clicks measured, judged over months.
How Leaf makes it simple
The hard part of a microsite should be the content, not the plumbing. With Leaf, you describe the microsite to the AI you already use, and it builds it with the basics handled:
- Fast pages prepared in advance, with real “page not found” pages.
- Your AI checks each page the way search engines and link previews read it: title, description, share image, headings. It also takes screenshots on a phone and a computer.
- Previews are hidden from search engines; only the version you approve goes online.
- Your domain, or a subdomain of it, with the certificate handled.
- An editor for the texts, so marketing updates figures and sections without the AI, then clicks “Update the site”.
- Several languages if your audience needs them.
- Visitors per site, counted without cookies, with sources and pages, next to the costs of each site.
And when a microsite has done its job, you can export everything it contains, or archive it so it costs nothing.
One topic, well covered, kept alive. That is what makes a microsite worth it. The rest can be taken off your hands.
Aussi en français : Microsites SEO : quand ils aident et comment bien les faire