Microsite vs Multisite? What are they, and when do I use them?
Microsite vs Multisite: What is a Microsite?
A microsite is a small, branded site of limited scope, with only a few pages. It will sit outside of your businesses’ main website, with its own domain. They are particularly useful when companies want to share very specific content with a particular audience. Everything featured on the microsite, such as brand colours, imagery and text, will be focused on that customer.
This way, the brand can actively target its audience in one place, capture their attention and engage with them. Conversely, if they were directed to their usual website, messages would become diluted, engagement would drop and they would leave the site.
Examples of when to use a Microsite
- Launching a new brand or rebranding
- Promoting a new event
- Introducing a new service
- Providing specific information on a subject
- Giving users a particular interactive experience
Following the catastrophic Vale’s Corrego do Feijão mine disaster in Brazil in 2019, Scream Blue Murder was asked to develop a microsite for Global Tailings Review. The findings from this independent review were published on this site alongside safety and best practice recommendations and downloadable resources.
Microsite vs Multisite: What is a Multisite?
According to wpbeginner, a multisite is a type of WordPress site that allows you to create and manage a network of multiple websites from a single WordPress dashboard, letting you easily make changes and keep all your websites updated from one place.
Examples of when to use a Multisite
- When you need to create a network of sites from a single hosting account that shares the same page design, functionality and plugins
- If you need to edit or upload similar content to several sites at once
- When you need to scale a large project at once, very quickly
Scream Blue Murder developed a series of multisites for the International Council on Mining and Metals to articulate global company messages which could be managed and replicated in house. Eight sites were created containing bite-sized chunks of content translated into French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
On a more local level, growing business, Styne Group asked Scream Blue Murder to design, build and copywrite a suite of multisites for the Group and its associated companies – Styne Refrigeration, Styne Engineering and Styne Electrical, showcasing their specialist services and synergies between their companies. Easy to use navigation provided customers with a ‘one-stop-shop’. In addition, employees found it easy to upload new content and keep the site updated.