Is your site a little less than fresh?
Image from Conversational Media Marketing
There are many ways to keep your website fresh including press releases, blog posts, and newsletters. For a list of ideas for adding content to your site see Part 10 of the article “Developing Your Website: Tools for Women“. An important point made in the blog entry “Why Your Web Site Needs an Oil Change” about frequent updating is that if your site maintenance is outsourced it can be costly to update your site. One solution to this cost is a website powered by a content management system so that new content can be added from within the company into the website template. If you don’t have time to update frequently, RSS feeds can be a way to keep your site fresh without writing new content. An RSS feed inserts information from another site into your site, like headlines with links to articles or blog entries detailed instructions of how RSS should be added to a site are described in the blog entry “RSS or a Website Freshness!”.
A fresh site keeps visitors coming back to check on the latest information, where a site that is not regularly updated will lose repeat audience, as explained in the article “7 tips to make your web site fail!”. Another reason to keep the content on your website fresh is that it affects where your site falls in search results. People are more likely to link to your site if there is new content on it, and the number of pages that link to a site effect how it ranks in search engine results. A Google patent recently divulged that when a page was last updated is included in the algorithm that determines search result rankings. Both ideas are explained in the blog entry “Google Patent Reminds Us To Keep It Fresh”.
Finally how often do you need to update your site for it’s freshness to be effective? The “Fresh Content” entry on the Web Site SEO and Technologies blog suggests that you check how often your competitors’ websites are updated and add new content more frequently in order to raise your search results above theirs.
Setting the tone of a website
Deciding on the tone of a website is important in order to make the site’s users feel comfortable in the space. The tone is made up of all the components of a webpage including the text, graphics, layout and fonts. But how do you make sure the tone of the space you are creating reflects the people you want to visit your site?
Before you start setting the tone for your target visitors you need to define who you expect those users to be. The article “Setting the Tone” from the University of Leicester recommends understanding what your audience needs and expects from your website including looking at if they are a specialized group, such as one that would all know the same jargon, or a diverse group, like females between the ages of 19 and 35. After this is done a list of words describing the site that the defined user would like can be developed and the elements of the tone chosen based on the description.
A slightly different strategy for setting the tone of your website is to personify the company the website is for. The Spiral Media Website Planning Guide (pdf link) provides a list of personality traits, such as traditional or innovative and solitary or open, and asks that you describe the company as your target audience sees it. Using these traits a tone can be developed that suits the idea people have about your company. For example if you are a surf board manufacturer you do not want a tone that is professional and stuffy but one that is fun and has a beach feel.
One of the most important things to remember when designing a website is that it should complement your company’s other communication strategies, a point explained by DOWdb on their home page. Incorporating your brand into your company’s website is important for integrating it with your other marketing strategies. By doing this your company will present the same tone to their target audience no matter where they are seeing information about the company.
Following these ideas you can ensure that the tone of your website reflects your company and is a space that will please your target audience.
