Is Your Website Lame?

If you have not updated your company’s website in a couple years, you are in danger of having a lame site, and it might be turning customers and prospects off. It can also keep customers from finding you and spreading your message. Today’s business buyers and consumers want more from a website than a static brochure; they want information, interaction, mobility, and ease of use. Let’s look at some tools and strategies that will allow you to provide your customers with the online experience they expect.

Information
Staying connected with your customer means providing them with up-to-date information. One of the biggest dilemmas is finding the time to create fresh content in order to connect with customers. If there is one thing that the social media revolution has shown us, it is that clients are appreciative when you find information for them. Creating new content is wonderful, but if you want to add information to your website, you don’t have to be the one writing it. There are some great places to find content feeds to bring to your website. This can be accomplished by creating a widget of an RSS feed or using one that is already created for you. For example, on Alltop.com you can find a widget or Twitter feed that they created and add it to your own website. Many bloggers offer RSS feeds of their content. Check out a few blogs relevant to your industry whose authors might be writing about issues of interest to your customers. The value of your site to potential clients is that you are doing the screening for them and aggregating content that will be of interest to them.

Google Code is another valuable resource for populating your site with content. Here, you will find some great tools to add information and interactivity to your website. When visiting Google Code, check out the section titled “AJAX APIs” and you will find some ideas for adding information to your website. You may need your web developer’s support with this task.

Interaction
Adding information is one way to keep your website fresh, and interaction is another crucial element. From a technology point of view, adding video to your website is quick and painless. You may want to consider using a free player like YouTube or upgrading your quality and paying for a streaming tool like Vimeo. These two options are fast and simple, and only require that you know how to copy and paste code into your website.

Video can be created with just about any digital camera or cell phone. But if you have a message to send and you’re just not comfortable on camera, think creatively. Record a presentation with desktop software like Tech Smith’s Camtasia Studio or GoToMeeting. Give your customers a voice; ask them to record a video clip and send it to you. This will help promote your business and their company name.