Keep it Relevant

Make sure that all content, graphics and other design elements work toward your goals.

Be merciless in pruning elements from your site which don't contribute to your goals. Your visitors will notice and will appreciate the effort by returning to your site.

Keep it Current

Nothing drives visitors away from a site than stale information.

If you want to keep historic information on your site, consider moving it to a history page or farther down in your site.

Continually review your site for outdated material and be merciless in removing the old material from the site. It is TOUGH. It requires constant vigilance and there isn't much you can do to make it easier. Some automation systems can make life simpler for you. These include systems which time articles and remove them at preset times. These are usually available in portals or some content management solutions. But nothing substitutes for a human being looking through the site and taking interest in it.

Keep it Accurate

Constantly check the site for accuracy. Check everything --

• Content
• Links
• Keywords
• Titles
• References

everything.

Once a visitor has found inaccurate material on your site they will be less likely to trust the site in the future and less likely to come back to your site. If they consistently find accurate, current information, they will return to your site often.

When you add something new to your site, TEST IT! Click the links, look at the menus, read the material from the site. Make sure that everything is accurate.

Look for mis-spellings and other mistakes which will make your site less credible. In short, visit your site yourself and make sure that everything works as you expect.

Keep it Original

Don't just copy other people's material or provide a set of links to other material. Add some original material of your own. Improve on the other person's thoughts, provide a fresh perspective, add some value to the topic.

Sure, providing a consolidated set of links can add value, but not much. Lots of sites probably do a better job of it (take Google for instance). If you're going to have a set of links, how about evaluating them? Give the visitor some reason to stop by your site rather than some other site for those links.

Create your own original material. Sure you can include links to other sites. After all, that's what the web is supposed to be about. But give them some structure and meaning. Use them to enhance your thoughts, not just regurgitate the thoughts of others.

The more original material you have on your site, the more others are going to link to it to add to their sites and the more visitors you will have in the end.

Music Off Switch

If you use music on your site, give visitors an easy way to TURN IT OFF!

I don't know how many sites I have left because of annoying music. A simple OFF BUTTON can work wonders with your visitors sanity and your ability to keep visitors on your site and coming back.

If your site is likely to be visited by people at their work, you may want to consider only having music if the visitor requests it. This way, they won't immediately close the page when your site comes up at their workstation.

Splash Page Escape

If you have a flash or other "splash" page, give the user a way to SKIP the page.

If they have to sit through the same introduction each time they come to your site, they are likely not to come back.

Don't Strand Visitors

Make sure that you give visitors a way to navigate from all your pages. A user shouldn't have to rely on their browser's back button to navigate your site.

If you display PDF documents or other non-HTML pages, pop them up on another window. You can do this with the "target" element:

<a href="mydoc" target="_blank">link</a>

Pop Up Other Sites

If your content takes visitors to another site, consider popping it up in another window.

Once a visitor is on another site, they can get lost on that site and not be able to get back to your site. You want to keep visitors on your site as much as possible. Use the "target" element as described above to accomplish this.

You may also want to advise users that this link takes them to another site. This can be especially important for sites which cater to less experienced visitors or to children.

New Content

Give users new content. Periodic updates of content will keep visitors coming back to your site. If nothing changes for a long period of time, they will become bored.

A CAUTION: Make the new content relevant to the topic. Adding content just to add content makes your site verbose and uninteresting.

As you add content, be sure to also look at the organization of your site. Adjust the organization to accommodate the new content. As content grows, consider reorganizing by adding headers, providing quick links, adding menus and other methods to assure that your site remains easy to navigate and useful to your visitors.

Search Engines

Think about users who may come to your site somewhere other than from the main page.

A search engine is likely to drop a user somewhere in the middle of your site. Look at each page and consider this possiblity. Ask yourself, if you were dropped here could you get to other parts of the site.

Consider navigation elements like menus and breadcrumb lines to help your user orient themselves in your site. If you use a menu, consider some indicators to show the user where they are in your site.