A successful web presence requires an audience. More than just hits to your site, you want a community around your website. Building a community takes time and energy, but generally everyone wants to belong, so be patient.
One of the primary ways to accomplish this is to create good content. If a person is visiting your website there is a good chance they want to hear what you have to say. If you are the expert – your website should capitalize on that. If you are not an expert, it is easy enough to find experts that would enjoy contributing to your community.
There are two key methods for building the interactive community: e-newsletters and blogs. E-newsletters help build relationships with users, are easy to forward to friends, can effectively promote your business, are inexpensive to deliver, and can keep your name in front of your users. Blogs enable people to interact with each other without your involvement. You become the facilitator.
I can’t write a newsletter!
There is hope. Coming up with content on a regular basis is a challenge, but here are a couple ideas:
1. Interview an expert or a person of interest in your field. Interviews can be conducted via email and make interesting reading.
2. Look to other experts to contribute small portions of the newsletter on a regular basis.
3. Use humor and storytelling. Everyone enjoys a good joke or a true story.
4. And, of course, be yourself.
I don’t even know what a BLOG is!
A blog can take many forms. But basically it is a web-based discussion. By setting up blog-software on your website, a person can post a question or comment to your website. Then someone else can respond. And so on. As the activity and information in your blog builds so does your community.
Building a community around your website will not only be interesting, it will contribute to the success of your web business. But as a fair warning – it may take awhile, but stick with it – the process does take time.
A good place to get more information is: www.blogger.com or www.constantcontact.com.
Copyright © 2008 The NW Horse Source, LLC
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