In my article on Search Engine Land, I talk about how microsites can help your company. To give you a good example, I address a microsite that my company, Netconcepts, built for Countrywide called Credit Demystified implementing a tag cloud and tag pages that boosted the Google page count to 1,100. In this quote, I talk about how content and intent are both really important if you are considering a microsite:

There’s a time and place for creating a microsite, versus further building out your main web site. If your site is likely to gain more traction and interest with webmasters and bloggers by being at an arm’s length from your main site, then by all means consider it. For example, CreditDemystified.com is a microsite on improving one’s credit which contains not only articles, but also podcasts and RSS feeds. Given how “bloggy” the site is, it’s more likely to get link love from bloggers than a series of articles hosted on Countrywide’s site will.

To read more about this article, feel free to read The Pros & Cons of Microsites As An SEO Option.