How do you create a microsite for reputation management purposes?

Microsites are used in reputation work when the main corporate domain is not the right home for a specific narrative. Built with discipline, a microsite becomes a page-one asset that reinforces the broader reputation picture; built carelessly, it becomes a throwaway that adds nothing.

When a microsite is the right tool

• Executive story. A dedicated site for a high-profile executive whose individual story matters separately from the corporate brand.
• Defining initiative. A campaign site for an initiative that warrants its own presence.
• Contested topic. A response site addressing a specific contested topic directly.
• Brand within the brand. A site for a business unit that needs independent visibility from the parent.

The discipline that makes it work

• Clean, descriptive domain. Build on a clear domain rather than an obscure or disposable one.
• Full schema markup. Mark up every content type with the appropriate schema: Person, Organization, FAQPage, NewsArticle, so the content is machine-readable for both Google and AI engines.
• sameAs link discipline. Link sameAs to the corporate canonical and to authoritative external profiles, so engines connect the microsite to the right entity.
• Long-term asset. Treat the microsite as a durable property with sustained authoritative content, not a one-off.

The failure mode

The throwaway microsite is the opposite of all of this: thin content, no schema, no link discipline, deprecated after a year. Done correctly, microsites become page-one assets that reinforce the broader reputation picture rather than orphaned pages that dilute it.