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Why Growing Your Website Is Like Playing Monopoly

 

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Why Growing Your Website is Like Playing MonopolyIf you've played Monopoly you probably know that most players want to snag the coveted Boardwalk and Park Place properties.

However, just owning that real estate is never enough; it's what you do with it.  It's about buying houses and hotels so there are amenities for your visitors. 

Here's a concrete example:  Say you own both Boardwalk and Park Place. Your combined rental income from both those properties is $85 compared to just $8 from Connecticut Avenue. 

However, as you can see in the graph below, if you continue to add value to your Connecticut Ave property over time by adding houses and hotels, you reap exponential benefits (7x rental income) compared to doing nothing with the other two!

Adding Value To Your Website Over Time Reaps Huge Benefits

In fact, there is a huge differential in the investment versus return in both these scenarios.  The reality is it's about adding value and becoming an attractive destination for visitors and customers. The same goes for your business website.

So here are some simple ways to grow the value of your web real estate:

  1. Create remarkable content. People learn from it, share it and find their way back to your site.
  2. Publish frequently so there is a constant trickle of information from your site as a source.
  3. Provide free helpful resources to everyone, whether they be potential customers or not.
  4. Give love to get love. Feature industry figures so they can share their expertise on your site.
  5. Create a forum for discussions so your website is hub where the community can congregate and interact.
  6. Continue to diversify you content asset portfolio so you have audio, video, eBooks besides your regular content.
  7. And lastly, be transparent. 

Have you been adding value to your website?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments!


Photo credit: bob the lomond

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Posted by Prashant Kaw on Wed, Aug 26, 2009 @ 12:07 PM

COMMENTS

I love your attitude! You're right, too.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:29 PM by Rebecca


Love the analogy! Fresh content is essential to keep visitors coming back.  
 
 
 
We add news items regularly, as well as events - it's helped increase traffic tremendously!

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:30 PM by April


Our site has a cause marketing model of "save while you give" to charities and good causes.We have the free resources and content, yet haven't seen the viral expansion as quickly as we would like. Ideas?

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:32 PM by Tony Cruickshank


@April @Rebecca - Thanks for your kind comments! 
 
@TonyC - Pardon me if I'm suggesting things you've already done/tried. I would highly recommend adding sharing links so people can brag. Imagine tweets coming from your site: "My Business is donating money to XYZ charting because SDfds (LINK TO YOUR SITE)", 
 
Not sure what your Social Media presence is but a good use of LinkedIn and FaceBook above Twitter would be helpful with the viral aspects. 
 
Also content along the lines of "How to Go About Selecting A Charity" or "Make Sure Your Charity Contributions Are Going Where You Would Like" 
 
Hope this helps. 
 

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:42 PM by Prashant Kaw


Thanks for the tips - brief but to the point. "Give love to get love" is a good one, and one not normally covered. 
 
Randy

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:54 PM by Randy Kemp


I very much enjoy your content and know I will learn from it. I have a bit of a different tack from a "pure" business web site. I'm developing a web site aimed at "adventure" because I enjoy "adventure" myself. I plan to provide content that is unique coupled with great photos to carry it all along. 
 
Challenge? Yep, but I sure like it. 
 
Thanks again. The knowledge I gain here should help me in my quest.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 1:19 PM by John Meekikns


Very well said. A great reminder.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 1:48 PM by Heather Bohr


You guys continue to do it again and again. Great advice today on continuing to add value and grow the content on your site. 
 
I've been very impressed with Hubspot's actions in this regard as well, especially with the new Inbound Marketing community and associated events, etc.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 1:52 PM by Mike Templeton


I call dibs on the car! And I always loved snagging the railroads. :-) 
 
Really like the analogy and will incorporate those ideas I haven't already started.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 1:57 PM by Carma


Great article. Maintaining a website is a lot of work, but it is worth the effort.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 2:37 PM by Gail Cavanaugh


Fantastic article. I completely agree and try to encourage my customers to provide dynamic content that adds value to their customers' experience, regardless of industry. You have a wonderful analogy that I'll be sure to use in the future!

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:36 PM by Mariano


Nice article, Prashant. As an SEO company, building some sort of "knowledge center" is an important part of our work with clients - the search engines and the "searchers" both love it! Your analogy of Monopoly helps get the point across well.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:47 PM by Lisa Banks


I recently added tons of value to my website by adding an interactive presentation right to my front page. I get 40% of my visitors to click on it and 100% of them are qualified or disqualified as a result of going through it. Really inexpensive too. Works with Powerpoint and a technology called 'interactors' from Presenternet.com. My qualified leads have tripled from my existing web traffic!

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:48 PM by Dave Smith


Thank you for a nice post. We have been doing all of this except having a Forum. Thank you for the idea. We will work on it.  
 
 
 

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 6:20 PM by Ayesha Habeeb Omer


All of my blog posts are very basic information on how to use social media to market small business. My clients are often business owners of brick and mortar businesses that have not had a lot of contace with social media. So I try to load my blog posts with good free basic information that they can act on immediately.

posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 9:43 PM by Deborah Richmond


Thanks for the insights. One thing I've noticed with many B2B web sites (also similar to monopoly) is that companies spend (invest) money in many areas without any overall strategy. Just because you land on a space doesn't mean you should buy it. Companies need to invest only in web site expansions and content that will contribute to their overall profitability. That discussion would make a great Part 2 post.

posted on Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 5:33 AM by Chris Henneghan


I love building and growing my websites, and playing monopoly so this is a great comparison and makes learning important new things fun.  
 
Great post, 5 stars.

posted on Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 7:27 PM by Jeremy Campbell


This is good stuff. Because it does work like that. For Monopoly and for people and their businesses.  
I also like that you linked the idea to adding value instead of going towards ROI directly.

posted on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 5:15 AM by Qapacity


I really like the analogy to the game of Monopoly. You are absolutely right about keeping your site transparent and giving love to get love. Great stuff! -Norene

posted on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 10:15 PM by Norene


You're true, it's like a game..

posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 at 7:49 AM by Jerusalem Style


Although we're HubSpot customers I must point out that Park Place + Boardwalk yield a much higher percent of return than Connecticut/Vermont/Oriental  
 
See Here: http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/en_US/discover/strategy/breakdown/payback.cfm 
 
I also wrote an article on Monopoly and lead generation too:  
http://www.referralkey.com/small-business-blog/category/monopoly-and-the-lead-generation-process/ 

posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 at 11:12 AM by chris o.


@ChrisO You are absolutely correct. In this case I'm comparing Conn. Ave developed with hotels versus Park Place + Board Walk without any development. The point I'm trying to make is good real estate does squat unless it is developed continuously while a run of the mill real estate can peform really well if you add value to it. Thanks for sharing!!

posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 at 12:03 PM by Prashant Kaw


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