It’s a new year…a time to reflect and prepare.

I am a huge fan of ‘next step navigation’ on a web site — the ability to anticipate what a user may want to do after visiting any page in your site. This is done through analytics, observation, and internal politics (you know what I’m talking about).

But one aspect of success for most of us is the “Anti-Field-of-Dreams” phenomenon. If you build the site, that doesn’t mean people will come. As I dig through traffic of sites, one thing I notice is that although direct traffic to the site is the #1 entry point, the successful visits (completing a task we want them to complete) are done through push marketing.

Although I don’t say goodbye to ‘next step navigation’, this year’s goal is to push sites in front of more eyes.

My initial steps:

• Email Marketing - my old friend. Successful emails are relevant, urgent, targeted, and focused.  3 out of 4 isn’t good enough for those elements. Make sure every email we send this year hits all four cylinders.
• Social Strategy. I’m going to let my friends do more work this year. It’s not enough to have a group on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. It’s time to create groups and pages related to goals. Simple awareness and presence is soooooo 2008.
• Mobile Infiltration. Not for the masses, but goal fulfillment is no longer a desktop/laptop-only environment. If it’s location-based or event-based activities, they will now be mobile-ready and pushable activities.

I haven’t forgotten about content syndication, but that turns out to inform, not drive. It’s time to put our users in the drivers seat…all roads lead to my site (Corny? Yes. Selfish? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely).

Have a great 2009.