One Man Band

This is one of a series of posts that respond to excerpts from Seth Godin’s book, Small is the New Big, from the point-of-view of what can best be applied to a DIY Online Business for One.

Mr. Godin is an entertaining and original writer who looks at everyday situations for their applications to business but is not blind to larger issues of ethics and morality. (The titles of his books are great examples of marketing: amusing and intriguing.) One of his more refreshing attributes is humility: he raises questions that he doesn’t know The Answer to, while being unafraid to throw out red-meat suggestions for discussion.

Today’s excerpt:

I’ve gotten about a dozen e-mails about Google’s clever way of indicating that they keep adding storage to Gmail.

Every time you visit your Gmail account, you notice that the amount of storage you’ve been given has gone up.

The same thing is true for the billboard on the bank near the house in Buffalo, New York, where I grew up. It didn’t matter how many times we had looked at it before, we always looked at it again when we drove by. Why?

Because the time and temperature were always changing!

Why bother reading something if you already know what it says?

The best stories change over time. They change in ways that fascinate the consumer, and more important, they change in ways that are fun and interesting to talk about.

As a DIY Online Business for One, you want to keep visitors coming back to your website. Attracting new visitors is good, but enticing visitors to return is better.

Fresh content is key, in whatever format makes sense for your business.

One of the assets of maintaining a blog is the fresh content. If a new visitor decides to subscribe to the blog’s feed, he’ll be encouraged to return with every new post. A company news site can also provide fresh content.

But don’t overlook the static pages of your website when considering fresh content. An ongoing project can provide the opportunity to expand a section. A new project allows a new section to be built. New technology can also be a rich source of inspiration.

As time passes, these changes may require a website redesign that incorporates the expanded fresh content, plus perhaps better supports fresh content in the future.

Not at all a dreary prospect — more like a kid with a new set of blocks. What fun!

For more from Seth Godin, check out his blog.

For more recommended books, browse my business & and marketing astore or my web-design astore.

(You are invited to explore my entire website — kick off your shoes, sample a cookie, flip through the photo album, stroll through the shops and check seasonal promotions and specials, read up on national and local news, sneak a peek at the latest inside information — stay as long as you like.)