Well blood isn’t actually on offer (although for the right price I’ll consider it) but I still want to know what you want from this blog. In fact, I want to know what you want from a business blog, in particular a blog about improving your business website.

You see, I watch my RSS subscribers go up and down on a daily basis. Yes, I said down. That means that when I gain a few subscribers, I also seem to lose a few subscribers. This I don’t like one bit and it obviously means I’m not giving you what you want and expect.

So what is it that you want and expect?

My goals are to teach you how to improve your website and to make it enjoyable. So how am I doing? Should I have different goals? Grade me, leave a comment, drop me an email (c r a i g at c o n n e x t e d dot c o m). Whatever works for you.

Because I can’t improve unless I know what you want. And the only way I can find that out is by asking.

So I asked, let’s see if anyone out there is willing to reply…

With visitors zipping about all over the Internet, it’s hard to get anyone to slow down and chat. From webpage to webpage they surf, instantly forgetting what they’ve just seen.

So if you want a visitor to return, you need to help them out a little. You need to get a visitor to commit to staying in touch with you, whichever way they want.

Why

If you don’t capture a visitor’s attention long enough to get their contact details, you’ve lost them forever. Sure, some might return on their own steam, but the percentages rank against it. How many times have you tried to remember some great website you found information on…but the name escapes you.

Internet Marketers have all sorts of tricks to capture email addresses and then sell, sell, sell to that list. But that’s not we’re about. If you’re lucky enough to be entrusted with a visitor’s email address, you should treat it like your own. Always offer the visitor value, never try to sell them to death!

How

The obvious one is an email capture box for a newsletter but there are other ways to stay in touch with your visitors. For example, they can subscribe to your RSS feed of your blog. This way the always get the latest information you’re publishing through your website.

[Note For those of you who don't know what a RSS feed is, click on the orange square in the top right, then use Google Feedreader to subscribe to this blog for free. Have a play around and save yourself hours visiting your favourite blogs each day.]

And don’t forget the power of social media to stay in touch with visitors. Have them sign up to your Facebook Profile and Pages, Twitter, and other profiles around the web.

Homework

Think about how you communicate with visitors and capture their information. What other ways could you do it? Remember to give your visitors as many options as possible.

GoogleGuy Matt Cutts did a presentation to bloggers about how to improve their search engine rankings. You can find the full hour long video here along with a nice summary of the key points done by Efren.

If you’re serious about Search Engine Optimisation, you need to listen to what Matt has to say as he’s a Senior Engineer at Google and works on keeping search results spam free. He’s basically the SEO community’s best insight into what Google are doing and how to increase your website rankings. Plus, he’s a funny guy and the video is quite entertaining.