Ok, maybe "gamechanger" isn't quite accurate, but the importance of micro-sites should not be overlooked!Ranking a site for a particular keyword that isn't relevant to the sites url or data structure can be a very difficult task. Don't get me wrong this can and is done over time, but there is a better way to drive traffic off of the key terms that are competitive in your market.
Micro-sites!
This is not news to most all SEO's. Here is an example of a useful application of microsites in the Adventure Travel market. The adventure travel market is very competitive and most players in the space are spending thousands of dollars on SEO and PPC to drive sales. Most adventure travel dollars funnel through the web.
For this example we will look at the company Mandala Adventures. Mandala Adventures is an Asia Adventure Travel company that in their words:
… seeks to provide North American travelers with flawless adventures and dream-vacation experiences in Nepal. Our trips are uniquely crafted and expertly operated, based on over 10 years of travel industry experience. Mandala Adventures will always focus on ecologically conscious and conscientious travel, stressing "leave no trace" practices.
Mandala Adventures has made a great investment in a website and online marketing including PPC and SEO. There are many keywords that are valuable in the asia travel arena. One of the top destinations for Mandala Adventures is Nepal and specifically the Everest Region. Everest treks are very popular and therefore the keywords having to do with everest trekking are very competitive in both PPC and SEO.
As always Mandala Adventures can choose to try and optimize their site for "Everest Treks", but they do much more then just everest treks, so it gets tough to optimize for everything that a company offers.
They could go the PPC route, but these terms will cost $1.00-$2.00 per click and that gets very expensive.
The most effective and best value is in using a handful of micro-sites to get to the top of the native search results.
So the research is conducted and it's found that the term "everest treks" generates a decent amount of volume in search and also is not super competitive – meaning we have a great shot of getting on the first page very quickly with the right microsite.
Time to find a microsite domain name. Upon searching they aquire two domains that will be very productive: everest-treks.com and everest-trek.com.
Unique content is needed for each site. I like a good solid page of information that must be rich in the term "everest treks". Make sure that the keyword is found in one H1 tag, one or more H2 tags and one or more h3 tags. Create the meta information again with proper use of the keywords.
Important: Be sure to include a menu that contains links back to the parent site where leads and sales are made – in this case a menu of helpful links back to Mandala Adventures.
Once this is done you are ready to build backlinks to these micros.
This is a fast and relatively cheap way to get ranked quickly for competitive terms. You may not always be able to get the best microsite urls – you really need to search for them, but I assure you it is worth the effort.
