Let the website visitor exercise control

In the early part of the twentieth century, content publishers controlled to a great degree what people heard and saw concerning the world outside of their own personal experiences. As radio stations began to proliferate around the country, Americans became more able to make choices as to what they heard. However, for many years there were only three televison news networks from which TV viewers could select. When Cable television became widespread it provided viewers with even a greater degree of ability to choose their own content. The world wide web has created an environment in which users now expect to control the content of their web surfing.

Unfortunately many companies, especially small business people, are seemingly unaware that the content provider can not control what his or her audience chooses to read or when they choose to leave. Commercial content providers continue to try to tell the consumer what the site owners wants the consumer to know, instead of telling the consumer what the consumer wants to know. Some website owners continue to attempt to keep visitors on their website by using framesets to provide content from other websites.

Website owners, listen up! You can't lick them, so why not JOIN them.

Those content providers who are focusing on providing the website visitor with the information which the visitor wants are speedily outpacing those business owners who are trying to control their audience. The month before the 2004 US presidential elections, the website drudereport.com ranked third in the google.com rankings of news websites based on google users' selections. What is interesting about this is that the Drudgereport is NOT a content heavy website. Matt Drudge does publish an occasional editorial, but the main reason for the website's popularity is the fact that it is a gateway to OTHER websites.

Rather than trying to keep visitors on his website, Matt Drudge is empowering visitors to find the content that they want regardless of the fact that this means they leave his website just about as fast as they arrive. But according to google.com?s end of the month round-up in October 2004, this strategy is paying off.

If you want to increase traffic to your website and if you want visitors to frequently return to your website, then you need to focus on empowering your visitors to take control of their own web experience instead of trying to exercise control over them.