Are You Sticky?

One thing I do often is research websites. Sometimes I will find myself cruising from site to site looking at how each business/church designs their website. Here are a few thoughts I have on websites and how to attract more people...or how to make it more sticky so people keep on coming back.

1. Update information: Nothing can make a website more boring then old information. If you are a person that is not good at updating your calendar, then may I suggest not having one. In this case, just post your standard meeting times and the occasional special event. When a new person visits your website and sees the "Summer '06" calendar...what does that say about your church/business?

2. Flash graphics: I personally am a firm believer in not having to much flash (animation) on a website. The reason is that though we live in a fast paced, wi-fi, world...there are still some who have dial-up. When a person with dial-up hits a website with alot of animation, it can load to slowly thus causing that person to close the site. This is not to say animated buttons, some images are great...in fact this is a big part that causes people to enjoy a website.

3. How many buckets? A website that has to many options on the menu can cause information overlaod and might make it to hard to navigate. Keep it simple on your homepage. Most websites can keep the number of buttons to 4.

4. Consider a face-lift: One thing I believe in is giving your website a face-lift each year. If you have a logo, that is the piece that remains the same...this is called "branding." Whether you are at a store or home, it is always nice to see a change now and then. A website is no different, people like to see change. This change would also include new staff photos as well.

Just some thoughts for you to think about...feel free to comment!