Additional Features To Enhance Your Site

By WorkZ Staff
Here’s a list of features that you might want to consider when imagining your site. Some of these features go well beyond the basics of what you’ll need for your site. But you might find that some of them will be instrumental in maximizing your Web site profits.
When evaluating any feature it’s always a good idea to compare the cost to add the feature against the possible revenue the addition of the feature might bring.

The list of potential features includes:

On-site search engine
If a potential customer comes to your site for one reason and one reason only, you want that customer to be able to find what she is looking for quickly and easily, otherwise she’s probably going to surf somewhere else. Providing your visitors with an on-site search engine is a relatively easy way to ensure that your products, ideas, designs, and content are easy to find.
It’s also possible that, if you purchased a turnkey solution, you purchased an on-site search engine, so check with your provider to find out. Many companies offer free or low-cost search engines for your site.

Newsletters
Keeping your site’s visitors up-to-date with changes in the site’s content, sales and promotional items, and related news is a great way to keep visitors coming back. One way to do this is to publish an e-mail newsletter. Site visitors can sign up by entering their e-mail information into a form that you provide on your site. If you choose to make this newsletter interactive, you’ll need to create an opt-in e-mail forum. If you offer news and information in your newsletters and do not allow users to post to the group, the software and maintenance are, obviously, much simpler. In fact, in order to run a newsletter, all you need is an e-mail client.

Community
An essential element of any Web site, community refers to the group of people who frequent your site. It is important to cultivate this group in order to organize a community of repeat customers and develop a sense of interdependence. There are many ways to build community. For example, you can offer chat rooms, Web-based forums, discussion groups, and newsletters. You’ll need to choose forum technology and forum hosts to get things started. The following community building tools are easy additions to your site, because you can often find free downloads and free service providers that will provide access to (and host) these elements for you.

Chat Rooms
Providing your visitors with real-time communication capabilities promotes true stickiness. Visitors will likely remain on your site longer if there is a hot discussion or an immediate exchange of ideas and assistance.

Web-Based Forums
A common example of a Web-based forum is a message board. A message board is similar to a chat room in that it allows your site users to exchange ideas and thoughts and it keeps them at your site while they do so. Message boards and other forums differ from chat rooms in that they are asynchronous: Visitors do not communicate in real time and therefore need not be present at a certain time in order to participate. Your forum’s design and functionality depend upon which platform (NT or Unix) your site uses.

Discussion Groups and Opt-In E-mail Forums
Opt-in e-mail forums have the advantage of being both private and convenient. Those who have asked to be included in the thread or discussion receive the same e-mail and are able to post thoughts and ideas by submitting an e-mail message to the group’s moderator. The opt-in format allows users to take themselves off the list and add themselves back on whenever they wish. The software that enables this type of discussion is easy to use and widely available. You may want to outsource the service entirely, in which case you will want to choose either an advertising-based provider or a provider that charges a fee.

Affiliate Partners
You can significantly increase site revenue and traffic by starting your own associate or affiliate program. Planning your program will involve choosing or developing your software, setting up agreements with your associate sites, and deciding how much commission to pay.

Streaming Audio or Video
Streaming audio or video is an excellent way to distinguish your site from the millions of Web sites out there. You’ll need to be aware of your audience and of access issues before you introduce this bandwidth-intensive feature. To do this, you’ll need to understand how bandwidth, Net connections, and modem speeds affect your visitors’ experience.

Online Forms
You’ll use online forms to collect information about your customers, run online surveys, create opt-in email, and process orders.

Database Software
You’ll need some database software to capture your customer and product data. If you choose a turnkey solution provider to build your site, you may find that this is included, because many turnkey solution providers will offer this as part of their package. If you build your site using off-the-shelf software, you’ll want to choose one that will enable dynamic access to databases.

The above article was first made available at Workz.com.