Making Your Web Site Work For You

Keep Your Site Up To Date

Your Web site should be updated and modified continually. It is a simple enough job once you have created the pages, but an aspect that is often overlooked. At all costs avoid cobwebs - items that are identifiably out of date. The Web is a live medium, and people notice old content very quickly. For example, if you are running a promotion on your site of 10% discount for new customers, and this promotion ends on Christmas Day, then your site will look out of date if it still has a big splash about the promotion greeting visitors on 26 December.

Respond Quickly

Similarly, if you get any enquiries from the Web site it is vital that you respond to them quickly. The speed of e-mail means that a delay of more than 24 hours in replying to an enquiry can seem very slow. If you have response mechanisms on the site - for example, a form that sends an e-mail enquiry - make sure they are dealt with just as promptly. Remember that time differences across the world can appear to stretch delays, and even closing for the weekend can have a similar effect to closing your company for an additional day at either end.

Make sure, if you can, that you aren't the only person in the company who can deal with enquiries. You may be out of the office, sick, or on holiday, but the Internet carries on regardless.

Maintain Your Site

You should expect to have to spend some time every week on maintaining your site. Unless you have the time, don't include features that require a lot of maintenance. For example, if you want to include currency exchange rates on the site, it's better to provide a link to a site that specializes in that service rather than have to update a page every day yourself.

Make Your Web Site Visible

You will no doubt want to increase the number of visitors to your site, and the secret to this is visibility. Make sure your Web site is listed on as many search engines as you can find (there are programs that will do this for you automatically, such as the Submission Wizard by Exploit), actively pursue links with other sites by contacting the owner or Webmaster of suitable or complementary Web sites, and make sure your site has plenty of appropriate keywords and metatags.

Don't forget the importance of publicity using conventional media. Does your Yellow Pages entry include your Web address? What about your stationery, incentive gifts, advertising, Christmas cards? Can you find a 'hook' that will encourage the local or national press to write about your site? A half-page article in a Sunday newspaper can multiply your hit rate by a factor of ten over the weekend. You may feel it's worthwhile to run an advertisement specifically about your Web site. Persevere and be creative. It takes time to build traffic to a site, so keep at it and you will be rewarded.