How to create a microsite for digital PR

Microsites are one of the best digital PR campaign formats when it comes to link potential.

They can easily go viral and attract thousands of links in the process.

I’m going to go through the exact steps anyone can follow to create a successful microsite, with minimal technical knowledge and almost no budget.

What is a microsite?

A microsite is a one-page website with a single goal or focus.

Here are some examples:

Alex Tew's "donothingfor2minutes.com" - a timer that counted down for two minutes while users did nothing.

JournoFinder’s taconomical.com - an interactive map that shows the price of Taco Bell menu items at every Taco Bell in the US.

Hire a Helper’s wewontmoveyouchargers.com - a one-page website to display all the companies that said they won’t help move the San Diego Chargers to LA.

How to create your own microsite in 4 steps

I’m going to go through the steps you would need to take to recreate the "donothingfor2minutes.com" site.

1. Choose the domain name

Your domain name is the first thing people will see or hear of about your microsite, so it needs to be:

Memorable
Shareable
Easy to understand
Short
Relevant

Lastly, consider SEO optimisation. While creativity is important, you may also want to try and include relevant keywords you want to rank for.

You can purchase domain names from platforms like Namecheap.com for around $10-12 for a year – a small investment for what could become a viral success.

Here are some options for our site from Namecheap:

Domain names can get expensive if you want one that someone else has already purchased, but if you go for one that no one else has purchased yet expect to pay between $10-12 / year.

2. Leverage AI to code your site

Before the rise of AI, a lack of coding experience would have held many people back from creating a microsite.

But now anyone can get an AI chatbot to write all the code for you.

When you’re writing your prompt, clearly articulate your vision and be as specific as possible.

State what you want the site to do, what colors and images you want used, and any functionality you need.

I used Claude for my example, and within a few seconds it had written the code for me and also showed me a preview of the site.

Your first attempt might not be perfect, and that's okay. You can ask the AI to modify specific  aspects of the code until you get exactly what you want. 

Once you're satisfied with the code, you can save it as an HTML file.

To do this, open a plain text file on your computer, copy the code in, and then use save as and change the extension to ‘.html’.

If you’re having issues with this step, you can ask AI to guide you through it.

3. Get your site live

Once you have a HTML file with your site code, the next step is to publish it to the web.

This first time I did this I thought it was going to be complicated, so I was very pleasantly surprised with how simple it was.

Modem hosting services like Netlify Drop use a drag-and-drop approach.

All you have to do is drag your HTML file onto their platform and within seconds your site will be live.

You will then need to sign up and change the domain name to the one you purchase in step one.

Other options for hosting services include Vercel or GitHub pages.

You don’t need to worry about costs either - most hosting services offer generous free tiers that are more than adequate for most microsites. 

However, if you expect your site to go mega viral, it's worth setting up usage alerts to monitor your traffic and avoid any unexpected costs.

4. Promote your creation

Once your site is live, you need to get eyeballs on it.

There are two main routes here, and I would recommend doing both.

Journalist outreach

The most direct route to media coverage is reaching out to journalists who would be interested in writing about your microsite.

Search for journalists who have recently covered similar topics to your site, and send them a quick email telling them about your site and why their readers would find it interesting.

For example, if your microsite is in the digital wellness niche, search for journalists who have recently written about screen time, digital detoxing, or productivity.

To find the journalists, you can search manually with Google news and compile a list yourself.

Or you can use a tool like JournoFinder to speed things up.

Here’s how it would work with JournoFinder:

Search for journalists writing about digital detoxes. There is a very high chance these journalists will be interested in our ‘donothingfor2minutes’ website, because it is also about switching off and being present.

Add these journalists to a media list and then download the contact information.

If you were searching for these articles manually, you would also have to manually search for the email which gets very time consuming.

Social media 

Posting your creation on any social media platforms you own is also a no brainer.

When you post it, ask your network to engage with your post to increase the chances of it going viral.

Aside from the obvious platforms like instagram, Reddit is another platform well suited to promoting microsites. If your post is a hit, journalists can even pick it up from there without the need for you to do any outreach.

Find a relevant subreddit for your project and draft a post.

You will need to be careful not to be seen as overly promotional here, as lots of subreddits have rules about self promotion. But as long as your site is interesting to the audience and you don’t make the post about you or your brand, you should be fine.

In the Taconomical example above, we posted it on Reddit in the r/Tacobell and r/Internetisbeautiful subs. It got good traction and was picked up by journalists we hadn’t contacted.

Are there any costs involved?

One of the most appealing aspects about the microsite strategy is the low cost. You can set up a microsite for $10, and potentially get 1000’s of links in return.

Here’s what you'll need to budget for:

Domain name: $10-12 annually
Getting the site live: Typically $0 with modern hosting platforms
Hosting costs: Usually $0 for standard traffic levels, though you should set usage limits if you expect viral traffic.

As an example for the hosting costs, a site called istheshipstillstuck.com (created when the Ever Given ship famously got stuck in the Suez Canal) had 50 million views over 5 days, with 8000 requests a second at its peak.

And the total hosting costs came to $70, which Vercel (the hosting platform used) waived because they thought the idea was cool and it gave them lots of free publicity.

If your microsite requires any functionality that you find AI unable to help with, you may also need to consult a developer.

The downside of microsites

Whenever I champion microsites, I often get pushback because ‘all the links will be pointing at the microsite instead of my site’.

This is true, but the viral potential of a microsite far outweighs this.

A viral microsite is amazing for brand exposure and building brand awareness, and will serve as a top-of-the-funnel tool to get people interested in your brand.

Once the initial hype has died down, you also have the option to redirect the links to your main site.

Although I generally recommend waiting a decent amount of time before considering this because good microsites can still pick up links months or even years later.