You've bought a web application, now maintain and enhance it!

Maintenance and updates of web sites never really seemed to be a big problem in days gone by. Once in a while you would add a new press release, update the company page or tweak something here or there. However with the shift from web sites (static) to web applications (dynamic + data driven) and the move from web 1.0 functionality (1 way communication) to web 2.0 (bi-directional communication) the modern web application requires much more attention.

A Web application with Web 2.0 functioanlity can do much more for your business than its Web 1.0 cousin:

• It will connect you with new and existing customers
• Sell your product
• Reduce your support costs
• Increase your brands awareness
• Build community

However with all these new features it is unrealistic to think you can buy a Ferrari without maintaining it! The amount of upkeep is often challenging to communicate and sell to clients. Most of them are used to spending a portion of their marketing budget on the build with a few yearly updates and not a lot of additional promotion of their site. Therefore it is our job to educate then what has changed in the last 2-3 years since their last website redesign.

Modern sites and the content on them can be driven by any number systems including:

• Content management (CMS)
• Ecommerce
• Community and social media
• User generated content
• Rich media engine
• Analytics

Add to that traffic building and emarketing programs and frequent updates are a reality of doing business online. Investing in a dynamic sites means a commitment of time and cost to keep your web application up to date. Not only by adding fresh content, but by adding new features and refining your application to give users a reason to return.

As the web evolves and new features come along you should constantly be thinking about how to leverage them to improve and enhance the user experience, adding engaging content and providing tools that encourage interaction. Critical Mass have coined the term "Always in Beta" and developed a concept around that theme. And I think this idea of Beta pretty much sums up my feelings on the modern web application. It will never be done, and nor should it be. Make sure that you allocate budget and earmark time for adding to and embrace the rewards of going Web 2.0!

Content is part of design to!

It seems so many websites really don't get it when it comes to content. I can't even count how many websites I’ve viewed where they have a killer header graphic, nice navigation and overall good looking page template and then when you look at the content it’s sad. There is no consideration given to how it flows, or make it enticing enough for the user to actually read it. There are just paragraphs stacked on top of paragraphs, generally at 8 point making it impossible to read!

In this era of everything being on demand and with the popularity of services like Youtube with its rich media, chances are if you haven’t made you content engaging users won't read it.
It’s easy to dress up page content to make it more appealing.

Here are some ideas:

• For one break up your content, no one will read a big blog of text! See BBC website for a good example
• Use call outs – Use CSS or graphical items to show excerpts of quotes from text
• Use underline, and background color to jazz up content, 37signals have perfected this technique
• Have a linking strategy, it helps people to deep dive and view other content on your site
• Provide content intelligence – Show a list of related content (see my taxonomy blog)
• Embed stuff… take a look at any blog: video, flash, images, audio are all ways to keep people interested and enhance the content
• De-centralized your content by providing a feed in RSS, getting people to read it in any form is still good!
• Add tools like text size, search, email, embed (digg etc) and print so people can interactive with it

So there you have it, hopefully some of these idea’s are helpful. I’ll leave you with some recent sites I visited that have done this well:

• http://www.articulate.com/
• http://meetmenow.webex.com/
• http://adage.com/

Creating a compeling user experience ... the 8 second rule

While talking to a co-worker recently he compared a websites homepage to a shop window. I had never looked at it this way before but when you think of it, he is right. If I walk by a shop and see the same display in the front window every time I walk by, as a consumer I am far less interested in going in and taking a look. The shops that change their window displays frequently and keep me interested and the ones that generally entice me inside to buy something.

It's amazing to me why so many companies’s with bricks and mortar establishments who care know how to sell product in the traditional world, don't apply the same tactics to their website online!

We've all visited websites where it doesn't matter if you return today or 30 days from now nothing changes. I'm not talking about old static websites either, I’m talking about websites that have clearly been redesigned recently and are clearly run on a CMS and have an e-commerce component.

Your website in your online living and breathing marketing tool, so use it like one!

The term "Content is King" has been banded around quite a lot, but it still holds true. Make sure their is plenty of good content on your website, but also make sure it's relevant and targeted to the user. Sure it takes time and money to develop website that enables you to keep content fresh and relevant. But with the ever increasing number of businesses going online today its a competitive market place out there.

If you have the ability to update your website frequently and have the skills to do so then do it! It doesn't matter how much money you've spent on SEO or SEM. Without a compelling user experience, and if you haven't found a way to engage a user after 8 seconds you've lost them you've lost them to the next listing on Google.

I guess the mentality is "it's not my job" could be your downfall. Hmmm a certain viral email image springs to mind (see left).

My point? Don't let your website fall prey to becoming boring and static. Keep the content fresh, relevant and sticky. Give users a reason to return!