Tell your story quickly, update it regularly, collect contact information – all with an eye to making the most of the ultimate online marketing tool - email.

Here are the three things you must do with your website:
1. Tell your story quickly.
2. Update it regularly.
3. Collect contact information.

Our previous article, #1 – Tell Your Story Quickly, showed how to present what your company does as rapidly and effectively as possible. Now, we describe the kind of content you need to keep your site up-to-date – a process that simultaneously makes your company look dynamic and tells your story.

#2 UPDATE REGULARLY

Regularly update your website and you will convey two things to viewers: First, they will feel that your company is dynamic; if your site is dynamic it means your company is, too. Conversely, if nothing is happening on your site, maybe nothing is happening in your company.

Second, the most effective way of telling your company's story is to post "news" items or stories about your company's successes.

Here's a tip: Don't get discouraged if something profound doesn't happen every day at your company. The content that appears on your homepage doesn't need to be earth-shattering. The point is to keep the homepage fresh, so try to add something at least once a month. And, at the end of this article, we show an alternative to "news."

Technique A – Brag About Yourself

The web is no place to be bashful. Use your website to show how effective your company, products or services really are. This kind of content is the typical company news or "What's New" stuff.

An example is San Francisco law firm Haas & Najarian's website (www.haasnaja.com), which the firm regularly updates with its latest victories."Since we added news items to our homepage, we get to show off our successes as they happen. Business people find the success stories to be rather compelling," says Louis N. Haas, the firm's managing partner.

Technique B – Brag About Your Customers

Sparkpr (www.sparkpr.com), a San Francisco public relations firm that focuses on technology, uses its website to show how effective their services are in a more subtle way. Their homepage lists the most recent media "hits" that Sparkpr helped their clients get, from The New York Times, to eWeek. Although the site shows the clients getting media attention, it suggests that Sparkpr was the catalyst to the attention. Moreover, it gets updated at least every two weeks, which means it is extremely fresh."Our website is a showcase of our clients' and our successes, and in our environment keeping the website current and timely is critical," saysMike Brown, Sparkpr's CEO.Brown knows this is important, "because prospective clients often evaluate us on the results we have delivered."

Keeping a "news" or "what's new" section up-to-date is the most effective way to tell your company's story because it gives real-world, solid examples of your successes. However, since you can't always generate "news," there is an alternative.

Technique C – Look Like A Genius

If things are a little quiet around the office, another way to add content to your site is to write an "article," "white paper" or "thought-piece" about a topic that is of interest to your market.

Many companies utilize this technique because it accomplishes some things a news item can't. First, an article can be used to position your company or an individual in your company as an expert in your industry. Timely or in-depth analysis shows that your team is on top of the issues and is confident enough to share their thoughts with the world.

Also, an article can be used as a way of promoting a particular area of expertise that may be extremely popular or in great demand. For example, at the beginning of April every year, you will see a plethora of tax-related articles written by accountants.

Finally, Haas & Najarian uses articles to promote areas of expertise that are not well-known or understood."Our hospitality law practice is very strong, but we wanted more people to know about it," says Haas. "We decided to keep an article about hospitality law on the homepage because we were making a real marketing effort in that direction,and we knew it would complement our efforts at establishing ourselves as experts."

Conclusion

Regularly updating your website accomplishes two goals. First, it keeps your site looking dynamic, which implies that your company is also dynamic.

Second, the content that gets added to your site shows people exactly what your company does and why they should work with you rather than your competition.

NEXT:
3 Things Your Marketing Site Must Do
#3 – Collect Contact Info
(http://www.workbox.com/news.php?article_id=5)

PREVIOUS:
3 Things Your Marketing Site Must Do
#1 – Tell Your Story Quickly
(http://www.workbox.com/news.php?article_id=2)