Jane Purcell, senior vice president of Advanced Access, a Web design and hosting firm in Anaheim Hills, California, says “I equate (having a good website) to a car. If you don’t put gas in it and get regular oil changes, it won’t perform for you. The same goes for the Web, where sites that aren’t useful or current do little good for their owners.”
That said, how do you make your site “pop?”
Here are a few ideas:
- Use strong headlines – Write engaging headlines that speak to the essential needs of your patrons, such as “Got Kids? Need a peaceful moment? Come to storytime!”
- Keep it up to date – there’s no point for your patrons to come to your website if there’s nothing new for them to look at. Keeping it updated at least every couple of weeks keeps your site fresh and interesting for patrons.
- Keep your information accurate – There’s nothing more frustrating than out of date content or bad links. Check your content every now and then, your patrons will thank you.
- Write patron centered copy – It’s their library, let them know that! Use you and your, instead of I and we.
- Write in an inverted-pyramid style – list what essential services your library provides first (the basics), and keep the details at the bottom. They’ll read down to the nitty gritty if they are really interested.
- Use small, context sensitive pictures in your posts – Not every post needs a photo or a graphic, but it can make your site look and feel a lot more fun. KLOW makes this easy as you can upload a photo to place on any post. You don’t have to use only photos, you can use royalty-free clip art as well (see the post below) to make a point or draw attention to a particular post.
I’m sure you have many ideas on what makes websites pop… what are your ideas?
