Microsites

[seo matt]

Just wondering if anybody has tried writing or building a microsite to market a new product, service, or even an individual home? Don't know what a Microsite is? Have a look at this article: http://directmag.com/searchline/5-17-07-microsites/

[rvolk75]

I personally haven't tried it, but I know Toll Brothers has been utilizing this approach for years. They have their main site and they have separate websites for each community. Here's an example of one: http://www.huntingdonplace.com/.

As long as these microsites are providing all the necessary information related to a product, I think it's a great idea to create a site that will magnify the importance of a product.

[Bigtoe]

I have a site for every town I work in. Half of them are on the first page along with my main site.

[pcdoc]

We do single property sites, see my sig, or click

http://www.1stpageseo.com/index.php#...property-pages

And, they work, helping to sell two "high-end" properties, in a depressed market within the past six months.

[EFS Webmaster]

we do vanity/micro sites for almost all our listings. Owners like to see them and certain high-end properties can really shine with the right professional photography and site.

Also, its pretty standard in our area for builders / developers to create these type of vanity sites for new projects they are working on.

[SEO Nick]

We do single property sites, see my sig, or click

http://www.1stpageseo.com/index.php#...property-pages

And, they work, helping to sell two "high-end" properties, in a depressed market within the past six months.

That's a really cool idea. The first time I've seen something like that before.

[coastal]

How much time do you put into the SEO for these microsites? If it takes three months (or more) for Google to like them how valuable are they?

I suppose you could always include the web address on all of your printed material for the property and the home owner who knows nothing about SEO would certainly be impressed with a site build specifically for their home.

Then again I don't claim to know much. Maybe you have a quick easy way to SEO them into Googles favor significantly faster???

I've been playing with wordpress microsites and they seem to index very quickly even for brand new domain names on brand new hosting accounts.

I also realize that web rank is not everything and there are other reasons to host a microsite.

I have personally purchased "community name" domains and forwarded them to the page on my main site that talks about the specific community. These seem to work well for getting listings.

[seo matt]

Thanks for the responses guys. Some really good examples shown here.

Do you think having a microsite for a new home, development, etc is more valuable than an internal page on your existing site? Coastal I see your strategy kinda uses both angles, which is cool.

Sorry about the link to the article, btw - it seems to load really slowly.

[OCTeam]

We use them for many of the properties we list. We keep most of them up after they sell if they have good SE position. Mainly, they have links to our main site and a visitor can search our IDX for other property. So, it is just another avenue to get people to our main site.
Here is and example; www.CuteBeachHome.com or www.AvenidaGranada.com

Sellers are impressed as we can show stats on how many visits, how they got there, etc. A great listing tool. Plus, it refers visitors to our main site...a win-win.

We use the url to promote it on flyers, post on CraigsList, some email signatures, etc.

[coastal]

OC - nice clean looking site! cutebeachhome.com/
The calming music put me in a buying mood

Edit - I just noticed the jumping fish. Nice touch

The web 2.0 colors are nice as well. I might be using something similar on my next template site.