You’re Fired, AOL!
I’ve used AOL for over 10 years but finally started to change over to my Gmail account and it made me think about how things have changed. Flash back to 1999 when I was still accessing the Internet with AOL dial up. When I got home from work, I would log on because if you waited until 7PM, the system would be too busy to allow people to log in.
Two of the websites I remember visiting daily were Yahoo.com and Pokerpages.com. In 1999 these sites were great, I spent hours browsing pages. The websites were entertainment for me and millions of other people. Yahoo and Pokerpages had something very valuable, my internet habit.
The Internet habits of your customers should be a major focus of your site. How many times a day does the customer visit? Which pages do they view? How long do they spend on each page?
Yahoo and Pokerpages didn’t do anything wrong to lose my business, they didn’t improve fast enough. Once google started I heard about it from a friend, amazing since they didn’t have a refer a friend program. Google took over most everything I did on Yahoo within a few years. The same is true for Pokerpages. Many new and better sites started popping up. I went from daily visits to weekly to not at all in a matter of one year. One of your goals should be to change the internet habits of your customers. You keep them by entertaining them. View what other sites are doing. Improve on ideas you see at other websites.
If you’re not improving, you are losing. Don’t become the next Yahoo.
About the Author:
Scott Yeates is the head of Poker Consulting Services with Hybrid Interaction Ltd., also known as the legendary “ScottY” from his former position as the VIP Manager for PokerStars. Following a successful career as a world class online poker player, he decided to “switch sides” and now he advice leading iGaming brands on best practices for Rewards Programs Development. For further info, please contact [email protected] at Hybrid Interaction.