The British Library houses over 25 million books and an astouding 150 million items in all. It’s second only in size to the US Library of Congress with 32 million books (and interestingly over 6000 comic books).

Even your local public library probably has thousands, if not tens of thousands, of titles in stock.

Why?

Well the idea of a library is that you can find whatever kind of information it is that you’re looking for. If you want to learn about fly fishing, there are books on fly fishing. If you want to know about the Civil War, there are books on that too.

But the minute that you can’t find the information you’re looking for, the library is no longer any use to you. You’ll go elsewhere.

And it’s the same with your website.

When someone visits your website they are, by and large, in search of some kind of information. It could be as simple as your address or as detailed as the best way to plan for the tax inspector’s visit. If they find the information they need then there’s a decent chance they may stick around or bookmark you for a future visit.

If they don’t, they won’t.

So first and foremost your website must be an effective information resource, just like the library. The good news is that you don’t need miles of shelves to store your content online, but you do need to give it some thought.

Libraries are big because they have to plan for the needs of their users. Your website might not need to be big, but content should be equally important in your site design.

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