Is it time for Webtrospection?

When is the last time you honestly evaluated your website? If you're like most of us, your good intentions of relevant, compelling, frequent content updates vanished minutes after your site launched - like New Years resolutions quickly forgotten.

You posted the new sales brochures, updated the product descriptions and maybe updated some photography. But somehow, only a month or two later, it seems a little stale or worse yet, boring.

Is it time for some Webtrospection?

If so, perhaps you need to ask yourself these questions.

1. Does my site feel "authentic"? Can readers get a sense of who we are and how we operate? Do we seem personable or does the copy read like a boring marketing brochure? Does the site display a personality?

2. How do I stand out? Can a reader differentiate you from the crowd? Do you sell the thickest pizza on the block or the brightest paint colors? What makes your customers drool?

3. Am I bold and brief? Does your site design and content tell a story that sticks in the mind of the reader? Is it brief enough to be read?

4. Am I relevant? Does your story matter to the person who comes across your site? Who is your audience and do they care about your content? Are your keywords, meta tags or site links attracting the right audience?

5. Boutique or Big Box store? Are you trying to be all things to all people or do you do something particularly well? Can your audience tell?

6. Dialog or diatribe? Does your site invite a conversation, question, suggestion? Or are you simply "blah-casting". Does your site involve your customers or prospects?

7. Am I measuring what matters? Unless you define website success metrics and are regularly collecting and analyzing them, you're shooting in the dark. It's not enough to have a website. It has to be put to work.

Now get to work.