The Building Blocks of a Successful Healthcare Microsite

A microsite is a powerful tool for healthcare organizations to build awareness and engagement around a specific service line, location, or event.  

Unlike your main website, which needs to serve a wide range of audiences and priorities, a microsite can deliver a focused experience tailored to a single campaign or audience. 

However, despite its smaller size, launching a healthcare microsite requires more than just putting together a few pages. To be successful, it needs strategy, structure, and the right foundation. Here are the building blocks that make the difference. 

Knowing whether a microsite is the right fit 

Before you even start work on your healthcare microsite, you first need to decide whether a microsite is the correct tactic to meet your goal. 

A microsite sits somewhere between a single landing page and a full website — it offers more depth than a landing page but is more focused than your main site. 

They’re especially valuable when you need to spotlight a part of your organization with its own identity or audience. For example, a specialized location like a cancer center or fitness facility may benefit from a dedicated microsite to build awareness, highlight unique offerings, and strengthen its competitive edge. 

However, microsites can have a downside. Some users might be unsure how a microsite fits within the rest of your organization, and get confused looking for unrelated information on the microsite.  

Once you’ve weighed these pros and cons, think about whether the service, location, or organization you’re promoting will be best served by a single landing page, a refresh of your existing website, or a dedicated microsite. 

Taking the added resources into account 

Launching a healthcare microsite also comes with added responsibility. Instead of managing a single site, your team now has two (or more) to update and maintain. Without a clear plan, the extra workload can become overwhelming, and microsites may quickly become outdated. 

There are also financial and resource considerations. Building a microsite often requires additional content strategy, navigation planning, and unique design or branding elements, along with ongoing staff time to keep everything current. 

Finally, creating one microsite can open the door to requests from other departments. Approving a site for one area but not another can be tricky. To avoid inconsistent decisions, it’s essential to have a web governance plan in place that defines who approves microsites, under what circumstances, and how they fit into your overall digital strategy. 

Clear purpose and goals 

Now that you’ve decided that a microsite is the right choice for your organization, it’s time to choose the goals you have for it and the analytics you’ll track to determine whether it’s successful or not. 

Whether the aim is to attract new patients, drive event registrations, or recruit staff, establishing measurable goals (like sign-ups, clicks, or referrals) ensures the site delivers value. 

Audience-focused content 

Microsite content should speak directly to the intended audience.  

For patient-facing microsites, that means plain language and resources that help people take the next step in their care journey. For recruitment-focused sites, highlight career growth, culture, and benefits.  

Always keep the user journey in mind, and craft content that drives awareness, interest, and action. 

Strong visuals & brand identity 

A healthcare microsite should feel like part of your larger brand while still standing out.  

Campaign-specific visuals, tailored photography, and color schemes can give your microsite its own distinct personality without straying too far from your organization’s overall brand. 

Seamless user experience 

Microsites should be mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and easy to navigate, with no unnecessary layers of content. Accessibility must also be built in from the start to ensure all audiences can use the site. 

You can get an idea of what users will look for from your microsite based on your main site’s analytics. For example, if you found that users are more likely to take action when there’s a button to schedule an appointment at the top of the page, continue that feature throughout your microsite as well. 

Findability & promotion 

A microsite won’t succeed if no one uses it. Drive traffic through SEO, GEO, strategic content, paid advertising, email campaigns, and links from your main site. Your promotion plan should be as intentional as the site itself. 

Analytics & optimization 

Measure your progress against your original goals and use the insights to refine the site. From conversion tracking to heatmaps, the right tools help you adjust content, design, and navigation for better performance over time. 

Microsites can give healthcare marketers the flexibility to launch targeted, high-impact campaigns without overwhelming the main website. When built with clear goals, strong content, engaging design, and an intentional promotion plan, they can deliver measurable value to your organization. 

To learn more about microsites, check out our article on choosing between a microsite, a landing page, or updates to your main page, our case study on Bronson Healthcare’s Bronson Positivity content hub microsite, or our roundup of award-winning Geonetric-created microsites. 

Looking to launch a healthcare microsite for your organization? Contact our team today to talk goals and how to get started!