Content is Key
from Cyber Horizon Newsletter
I have been spending a lot of time recently focusing on the issue
of content development for college bookstore web sites. Essentially,
pondering the question of how best to support my client’s need
for fresh, updated and relevant content that will continue to
attract and hold customer traffic.
You may hear the adjective “sticky” being used when describing
a site’s ability to keep viewers interest for long periods
of time. The stickiness of your site can be measured by the length
of time the average visitor spends on your site. By the way,
as your web site becomes more complex your webmaster should be providing
you with information about the traffic patterns that you are experiencing.
To give you an idea of sticky sites consider that according to
Media Metrix data for
March, 47 million users have signed up for services from Yahoo
and that the average user spends just over one hour per month on
the site, nearly twice as long as Excite
and Netscape.
Holding your customer’s attention, similar to the time
spent browsing in your “bricks and mortar” store, is going
to have a direct impact on the potential for making sales. Getting
quality “sticky” content and keeping it relevant is one
of the most difficult, ongoing tasks that you will face in the Internet
environment.
To address this issue, I have been reviewing and analyzing some
of the national services that are out there developing, contracting
and selling content to web site owners. You can find multi-media
and streaming video at broadcast.com
and realnetworks.com
and traditional newspaper style articles at isyndicate.com.
With all of this as a background, I opened my Campus Marketplace
Newsletter this week, and saw an ad for the NACS
Monthly Planner, and it dawned on me that this tool could be helpful
as a guide for ensuring that you maintain relevant, local content.
This tool is designed to assist you in planning strategies, anticipating
tasks, and designating responsibilities. As you go about developing
your monthly in-store promotions, buyback campaigns, graduation
displays, etc. don’t forget to include the task of creating
new web site content to highlight these features. Envision the
content on your web site as a huge display window right in front
of your store. You would typically change the window merchandising
at least once per month; the same applies to your web site if not
more often.
The content at this point can be something as simple as an article
linked to your home page explaining the reasons for prices paid
at buyback, but as technologies improve it could be a video of a
faculty author reading excerpts from his or her new book. The
important thing is that it is always fresh, always relevant, and
keeps customers coming back.
The Cyber
Horizon Newsletter is a monthly compilation of articles addressing
the issues of Internet Commerce and the college bookstore.
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Web Site Design and Search Engine Marketing 
