How Alive is Your Website?
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If a visitor came to your website today, would they know if your site is current? Would they be able to guess at how many visits you get on a daily basis? Would they know they aren't alone?
I've talked at length in the past about growing traffic through search and email, improving your site experience through optimization, and I realized I haven't really talked about the personality of your site. I'm not talking about the tone of the content or the design of the pages. I'm asking does a new visitor know they aren't your first customer and does a return visitor gain new value from each visit.
I've been thinking about what I'll call "website death" over the past week and I wanted to share some ideas to cheat death when it comes to your visitor's experience.
1. Keep your content fresh and accurate
The first (and probably easiest) step is to keep your content current. This means updating content, creating new content and maybe most critically, removing old content. If you wrote a great case study in 2005 and want to keep it on the site, make sure you check the content for dates or other indicators of its age (outdated processes, technologies, etc).
2. Let your visitors add value
Allowing visitors to share their options on products is good way to help your site become more "alive". Seeing user comments and ratings shows that I'm not the first visitor and that people are passionate about your products. If you don't sell a product, you can still allow comments on news articles or the company blog you've been thinking about starting.
3. Let them make your website
Once you've let your customers add to your content, why not let them make their own. While being the next YouTube or Wikipedia may not be in your corporate plans, allowing customers upload solutions done with your products or share stories not only makes your site more alive, it validates and increases your brand's awareness in the market.
When a visitor comes to your site, there should be no question that your brand is surrounded by a vibrant community of customers (or even employees). Think about how you are perceived today and start making the small adjustments to keep the your site's pulse strong.
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