• ClickZ, Friday, September 5, 2008 2:18 PM

Kevin Lee extols the virtues of search-centric microsites in this post, arguing that a company's main Web site is often built to serve the needs of various visitors--shareholders, press, casual browsers and even job-seekers--but not to snag searchers with particular products or services in mind.

"If search is important for your business, you should probably stop selling to your search visitors from your headquarters," he says. "Start thinking like them, and design a user experience that balances your need to sell against their desires to select the best solution for their needs."

That means developing a microsite that includes features and functionality geared toward searchers' needs--and excludes all the extras that can get in the way of converting them into clients or buyers. "Microsites eliminate unnecessary navigation, particularly the kind that threatens transforming your selling/prospect marketing site into your headquarters," Lee says. "You can likely dispense with such content sections as 'Press,' 'About Us,' 'Employment/Jobs,' and other superfluous links and navigation, which your prospects will have little interest in."

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