What`s So Special About Your Site? - The Extras
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What’s so special about your site? For one thing, you’ve worked hard to include all those flashy extra features. You’ve got streaming video, embedded audio, polls and contests and forums coming out of every page. You offer RSS feeds so that traffic can easily access your content and you allow everyone to comment and sound off on any post that might inspire them. You’ve got a ton of extras; that’s what makes your site so special!
Here’s the problem: the competition has all that, too. It’s pretty much expected, and easily accepted, that even amateur Web sites will contain extra special features like video, user comments, an easy-to-use search string, forums and all sorts of other interactive tools to help liven up their experience. So how can you make all your extras stand out when the Internet seems largely comprised of nothing but a little content mixed in with all those added applications?
The extra-special difference usually won’t be in what’s offered but how it’s presented. Your site has extras because every other site does. Now it’s time to make your extras special by making them low-key. Make even the extras very streamlined and integrated smoothly into the rest of the site, rather than placing extra navigational links.
If you’re referencing a video clip, don’t include a link, just embed the video right into the content. Allow people to view user comments on the same page where they read the content in question. The extras are expected, so just place them seamlessly into your pages. Remember, it is the content and not the extras which should be the real star of your site’s show. There’s no need to call special attention to the extras; just casually present them, so that they’re viewable at a quick glance.
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