What is a Micro-Site?

There’s no doubt about it, micro-sites or are the latest craze in the writing world. Like blogs, they are here to stay. Micro sites are just what the name implies, “mini websites” that are part of a larger host website. Each micro-site operates within an identical framework that is set up by the host website. The difference lies with the content on each page, which is usually based on a particular theme, for example parenting, or gardening. Guest editors typically referred to as contributing or corresponding editors are responsible for providing the content for their own micro-sites.

Becoming an online contributing editor at a micro-site is an excellent opportunity to promote yourself and your expertise, while at the same time honing your writing skills and building up a readership. You might not get rich from running a micro-site, but with a little creativity and some hard work, you can certainly make some pocket change—and maybe more.

How Micro-Sites Make Money

Micro-sites derive their income from advertising affiliated with site content. Some micro-site editors earn money based on the number of page views, while others profit from pay per click (PPC) advertising such as Google AdSense. Many companies offer affiliate programs that pay a commission on products sold through your micro-site (this applies to regular websites as well). Amazon is probably the most well-known affiliate program, but there are many others out there.

No matter which way you look at it, the more visitors to your site, the more money everyone makes. So how can you get in on the action and make a profit from your micro-site?

One method that every micro-site editor has control over is increasing traffic. There are simple methods, which are the focus of this article, and there are more complicated ones such as search engine optimization. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an art unto itself, but one of the first steps is to choose your meta tag keywords and content carefully.

Sometimes however, you have no control over this aspect, or perhaps like many people you find keywords, meta tags, and html slightly, well, mind boggling. If that is the case, you might want to start off by increasing traffic to your micro-site using some simpler methods before you tackle the keyword meta tag part of it.