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All contents copyright 1997-2012 Bravenet Web Services Inc.
by Rick Audet
email this articleSummary : By definition from Dictionary.com, (two, of many definitions) a community is a group of people having common interests; Sharing, participation, and fellowship.
One of the reasons to create an online community is to give your visitors a place to belong and make them want to come back to your site. Since it's your job to attract visitors to your site take careful consideration with the way you present your site and market it. There are many tools to make this easy for you.
If you would like to get your site noticed and to create more visitors to your site, we recommend that you start Building your Community today! Have goals for your website, keeping the content up to date and informative, to keep your visitors coming back. Users that gain the sense of belonging to your community will promote, refer, and help a great deal with your community building. Make it fun for them; let your community be interactive as well as informative.
If you choose to get feedback on your website, this may lead to you re-evaluating the goals and content, so keep this in mind when you are building your website and community. Once you get visitors coming to your website, this starts your community. Building an online community is a lot of work so be precise and positive with your goals for what you want to get across to your visitors and market the ideas.
Make your site interactive for your visitors to keep them coming back. You can involve them in conversations about your site or services by using the Message Forum. Let your visitors help other visitors on your site, which can save you time and money. Put a Live Chat on your site to let your visitors talk directly with you and each other. This will create a trust relationship, letting them know they can ask or come to your site and services when they have any questions or comments.
Bravenet's Email Forms will allow your visitors to provide information and feedback directly to your email address.
Place a Guestmap or a Guestbook on your site to allow your visitors to comment on their visit to your site. This can also help you to determine where your visitors are coming from and to give you feedback at the same time!