Happy Christmas!!!

Well Christmas has passed and we’ve had a chance to once again remember the birth of Jesus the Son of God.  I hope you had a good Christmas and got to spend some quality time with your family.  Now however we have that awkward time of year where we’re heading for the New Year but we’re not quite there yet so is there time for some work?

For me I guess there is.  Some of my customers are looking for website updates and are keen to press on with updates to their sites.  I’m happy to help.  It did however get me thinking about all the things that you can do with your website.  I’m pretty passionate about the possibilities with websites and Christmas has once again stoked the furnace of ideas.  I thought that I’d share a few.  Perhaps something will be a hit with you?

First and foremost the thing that makes a great website is new content.  There is nothing like being able to go and read something new and interesting.  It doesn’t need to be fancy just straightforward text that’s well written and good to read.  Actually I’m tempted to stop at that because that really is the number one thing for a  website – content.  It doesn’t need to be video or images or any other medium you can think of; text will do!

That said if you’re looking for some ideas why not think along the following lines:

If you don’t have a good newsletter now is the time to start.  Often people start these and then give up.  They send them out for months with no response.  They think people aren’t interested.  Well if you think that you are probably wrong.  The statistics are clear people read regular newsletters, about 30% will open them and glance through them.  Whilst that might not seem a lot it really is pretty good.  And if you’re wondering the stats also tell us that any newsletter owner should expect only 2%  responses to them over a whole year!

Other things to try are blogs.  Now I’m not one to talk about the importance of keeping a blog going.  I’d fail my own test.  But people are interested if you write interesting stuff.  Keep going and you’ll get recognised and you’ll soon (after about a year) build up a following).

A final thought then would be a revamp.  Change the graphics.  Change the buttons.   Change the layout.  Make it look new and people will appreciate the effort.

That’s it for now but be sure to check back soon cause I’m planning to talk about the importance of the mobile browsing world and hopefully unmask some of the issues and difficulties.

Alan