Monday, June 05, 2006

Are You Getting Fresh!

It has been a little while since my last post. I have been working with several clients recently on completing new web sites. On a few of the projects I am getting a distinct impression they want me to go away and so they can actually pay for their kids to go to college instead of paying me so my kids can go to college! Building and designing an effective web site can be a large undertaking for any business, but especially a small business.

It is expensive and time consuming and many clients just want to take a deep breath once "it is done" and throw my business card in the garbage and be glad that they are done paying me. Not so fast, unfortunately you have only paid enough for my kids to get through their Freshman year, so we need to find something else to spend your money on! Fortunately for me I have just the thing... Maintenance!

I am obviously being coy here, but the point is an accurate one. Too many individuals want to just forget about their web site once they get it finished, but unfortunately you can't do that or your investment in a new site will be quickly lost.To get the most value from your site you need to keep working it like a farm. Most farmers wouldn't last long if they just planted some seeds and stopped working.

Your web site needs to grow and mature and that is where the work comes in. Fresh content is the only thing that keeps people coming back over and over again and brings in new people from word of mouth and/or better rankings in the search engines.

Here is just a partial list of things I have found to add to a company's web site after they were created...

  • Articles
  • Discussion boards
  • Reviews of new products
  • Technical support docs and forums
  • Calendar of events
  • Product/service manuals
  • Tip sheets
  • Booklets of new functionality, services, information
  • Videos
  • Audio files of shows, events, and other content
  • Free reports
  • Newsletter archives
  • Links to stories/info your customers would find interesting
  • eBooks
  • Podcasts
  • Blogs
As you can see the list is basically a long one and with a little thought I am sure you can come up with items I didn't add to the list. Now you obviously don't have to add all of these, but if you did imagine the visitors you would have!

The point is that once your perfectly crafted text about who you are and what you sell are done you have a lot of work ahead of you to keep the leads and customers coming back. Your web site is a lead generating and tireless salesperson for your organization, but it needs one thing to keep going...new fresh information and content.

Now how do I create all this "stuff" you may be saying. Good question, a lot of it you can find from other sources and just post the content on your site (with the author's permission of course), some of it can be developed by research and in some cases you will need to hire a professional copywriter to help develop certain things like white papers. Did I mention I also am a copywriter... hey my kids want to be doctors, you know how expensive medical school is :)

Seriously, you don't have to create all of it at once, it is done little by little each month or quarter and you will update old stuff while adding new things, eventually before you know it you have a kick butt web site that gets tons of visitors and lots of kudos for the great content you have developed. Remember growing content and your web site is a marathon, not a sprint.

So once that project is finished don't just forget about your site and hope the leads and sales will start pouring in, because they won't.

Michael Temple