Your Small Business and the Web
Small Business Web Design Tips
Website Content is King
Website Content is king, the fresher the better.
Fresh web content
The age old question keeps coming up, how do you retain website visitors, how do you make visitors return to your website? The answer should come as no surprise, fresh content. Content is truly king, the fresher the content the better the site. What many small business owners fail to realize is that there is an endless supply of content on the web that is freely available to small business owners.
Not only can public domain material be freely used and syndicated on websites, but a number of content publishers provide content in exchange for a link back to their websites. A variety of contents related to the website theme that is integrated into the website will attract the interest of both search engines and web surfers. The key to taking advantage of free content is integrating or including content that is directly related to the theme of the website.
1. Articles
Article repositories exist that categorizes content articles. Searching the repositories using keywords that are related to a websites theme will result in a wide variety of articles available for publication that are related to the site's existing web content. Articles in the repositories are available for syndication, which means small business owners can freely include the articles on their websites as long as they include the author resource box with valid links.
2. RSS Feeds
The contents of many RSS feeds can be syndicated. The added benefit of syndicating feeds is that they are frequently updated which will result in a steady stream of fresh changing content. In order to reap the benefits of syndicating RSS feeds, small business owners should use either an ASP script or PHP script to display the feeds contents as HTML. W3Now Web Design can help implement RSS feeds for you.
Search the following directories to locate related RSS feeds:
RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.com
RSS Locator - http://www.rss-locator.com
Free script for displaying RSS feeds as HTML (W3Now can help implement this for you):
rss2html.php - http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm
3. Shareware Listings
Consider populating a website or section of a website with related niche software applications. Many software companies offer applications as free downloads. The downloads allow potential customers the opportunity to try an application prior to making a purchase decision. Categorizing and displaying software that relates to a website theme can generate a lot of interest. Most developers provide product descriptions and information in a PAD file which is simply XML. Developers can locate PAD files using the ASP site and the PAD kit can be used to display the contents of the PAD file.
PAD Kit - http://www.asp-shareware.org
4. Creative Commons
A Creative Commons license allows creators to place conditions on their copyrights. Many artists allow other publishers to use their creative and artwork, occasionally there are conditions that credit must be given, while others are available freely. Web publishers can find a lot of unique content, images and creative using the new Yahoo Creative Commons Search.
The Yahoo! Creative Commons Search service finds content across the Web that has a Creative Commons license.
Yahoo Creative Commons Search - http://search.yahoo.com/cc
More on Creative Commons - http://www.creativecommons.com
5. Forums
Consider creating a community forum where like-minded individuals or at the very least individuals with a common interest can discuss problems, concerns, related products or ideas. The forum posts will generate a fresh stream of new and self perpetuating website content.
6. White Papers
Provide white papers, customer profiles or endorsements that detail how applications can be used in a specific industry. Creating a white paper section that explains how a specific product or service is used in a specific industry to solve a problem or increase productivity gives potential customers insight into how a specific service, product or technology will help in the course of a day.
Sample White Papers - http://www.notepage.net/whitepapers.htm
7. Web Directories
Creating a web directory of related sites while time consuming can result in significant traffic. Directories typically are well respected resources and rank well in search engines. W3Now Link Exchange does this for you
8. Newsletter Archive
If done properly online marketers see an almost instantaneous sales or traffic increases when they send newsletters but many do not benefit long term from the newsletter. Consider creating a newsletter archive, the content is already built, why not benefit from the potential traffic and unique phrases used, to attract new or potential customers?
Sample Archive
10 til 2 news archives - http://www.tentiltwo.com/newsarchives.cfm
9. Blog.
Ride the technological wave. A daily journal with information related to product or service launches, specials, technical tips, new product announcements
As search engines combat the problems with artificially generated a non-sensical web content, small business owners must integrate quality, themed content that is going to legitimately interest prospective customers.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com an RSS component for developers.
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