As I wrote last week, the single best way to increase page views for your website, and thus the value of your website, is by providing fresh content on a regular basis. If your site does not change, then you will lose out on repeat visitors. In order to keep up page views, you'd have to keep drawing in new groups of visitors that haven't seen the site before. As it is in sales, it is much harder to draw in new customers than it is to keep return customers.

If your site is updated once a month, then returning visitors will not get value if they check it more frequently than that. Of course, remembering to check on a website monthly is something few people will ever do, so try to establish habits for your visitors. Do that by establishing a habit for yourself of updating your site daily. Sure, it may seem like a chore at first, but with some simple tools like Preppermint, it can be made easy and automatic - just like your visitors' viewing habits.

As you can see at the bottom of every column, I am the creator of Preppermint - so I clearly have a bias here. However, this is a column about improving your station's website, and I still have not found a tool that can do what Preppermint can do (nor will I, hopefully, since our technology is patent pending). If you're looking for a fast, simple way to update your station's website on a regular basis with relevant content chosen by you and your staff, it's the only answer.

Preppermint - Radio Prep

The radio industry is full of prep services, including many available right here on All Access. If you are a PD or part of a morning show, I'm sure you've gotten calls from sales people hawking almost every one. The pitch is largely the same, "This Prep Service has the most freshest and most uniquest prep ever!"

Clearly, this is impossible. First, "most uniquest" is just a horrible mangling of the English language. Second, if you've subscribed or had a trial of most prep services, you quickly realize that they are almost all the same thing. Sure, some may do it a little better than others - but every prep service on the planet will have your American Idol results ready for you the next day. If you want to talk about what people are talking about, how unique is that? What makes great talent great is not a great prep service, but rather talking the same things everyone else is talking about and delivering it in a unique and relevant way.

That being said, I will say something that may get me into trouble. If all prep services are largely the same, then that means Preppermint is largely the same as well. And I will openly admit to that.

Preppermint does not break any ground in the delivery of stories, talk topics, etc. It, like all of the other prep services, gets you the news of the day with some wacky kickers and celeb news thrown in. It does the job and keeps you informed. In the delivery of prep, Preppermint is nothing special.

But this is a column about the internet and websites - and its web-capabilities are why Preppermint is something special.