Fresh content attracts.

Your website is a living entity. It’s a conversation between you and your customers, or at least a conversation starter.

What should you expect from your website? At minimum, you should expect your site to help you sell. It goes without saying (but I am going to say it anyway) that if you’re an e-commerce vendor, then you expect your website to be a cash cow.

If you are selling the invisible, a service, or you’re selling something with a long sales cycle, then you need sales leads. You want to let your prospective customers take the first step in getting to know you. Selling is a conversation.

You are unique

Think about this for a minute. You and I know something of each other. We have a relationship: you reading these words and me writing them. I am talking only with you, one unique human.The web is increasingly a social communication medium (like the telephone) and businesses need to take notice.

Failure to adapt

Have you noticed how many company websites talk at you and not to you? The tone is often official, passive, cold, and distant.  Wouldn't you rather be talked with rather than talked at? The one-to-many approach is ingrained in business culture. It needs to change. It’s from another age—the age of TV. It’s a failure to adapt. 

Talking together

The internet is a two-way communication medium. If this article were on a blog, you could comment directly. If you like, or dislike, anything I say here, or you want to ask me a question, it’s easy. You just go to my contact form or pick up the phone, and we'll start a conversation.  

Every successful business person I know develops relationships with their customers. A relationship might be in-person, by phone, email, blog, or other method, but it is a relationship. Rather than say what everyone else is saying, imagine your website visitor—just as I am imagining you. What does she want? What is he looking for? How can I help? Still reading, I see. Good. Do I hear you saying, "But what about my website?" 

Riding the wave of change 

I'll ask you a question. What does it say about your company to have an out of date web site? First impressions count for a lot online. Often, your website is the only information new prospects have about you. Irrelevant, old, or badly-written copy will turn away business faster than a rude receptionist.

Change is constant. Small businesses have the advantages of flexibility and the ability to respond when new needs appear, or long-term plans have proved themselves now obsolete. 

Good news: You can easily update your own website

Adding text and pictures or changing them is no longer difficult. At one time, I used to build websites writing HTML from scratch. Some people still do, or use tools so they don't have to learn HTML. However, static websites can be a problem. Every time a change is needed, the website owner has to contact the web designer/developer and spend time and money.   

But changing content is easy with a content management system (CMS). My favorite is Joomla!, a CMS that lets you easily add text and pictures to your own site. There is a learning curve—not that much of one. Remember, you had to learn how to use email at one time.  

More good news: It's free

Joomla! is free. However, what is not free is installation, modifying or installing new templates, and training. Joomla! is a good choice because this open-source software is well supported by a large and active developer community. In other words, help is there when you need it. When you need more functionality there are many specialist plug-in programs available. More are being developed all the time. My site is running on Joomla! It has a modified template.  

I also like WordPress, a blogging tool. This too, is well supported and free. It can be made to look like a blog, or a standard website with pages that are accessible from a menu. Both of these choices have some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) advantages built in.

Keep your website alive with fresh content.