Resources from nSiteful
What's one of the best ways to engage an audience?

Pose a question, and proceed to address it.

Questions get the brain working. Questions trigger dialogue. Questions can inject an element of mystery in an otherwise mundane subject. The enduring successes of Alfred Hitchcock, Agatha Christie, and Stephen King attest to the power of mystery to engage. So does our fascination with unsolved crimes and the amount of air time they receive on the cable news networks.

Question: What was the first line of Ayn Rand's classic, "Atlas Shrugged"?

Answer: Who is John Galt?

Question: What's the line most stand-up comedians begin their shows with?

Answer: "So how's everybody doing this evening?"

And the movie that many critics have hailed as "the greatest romantic comedy of all time" — When Harry Met Sally — opens with a question that is revisited many times in the course of its 96 minutes: Can men and women ever be friends?

Books, movies and TV news shows aren't the only beneficiaries of the power of the question.

Your Web site can benefit, too.

When I review draft content from clients for their Web sites, I almost always try to massage at least some of the expository language into a series of short bullet-point questions with answers that follow.

For example, instead of this...

"The mission of Partners in Music is to provide world class representation to up and coming singer-songwriters. We have contacts throughout the entertainment industry, and we are dedicated to getting you the exposure and income you deserve."

You could try something like this...

Are you spinning your wheels trying to get gigs when you should be finishing that song you've had in your head for the last three weeks?

Is negotiating with venue managers the reason you chose music as your career?

Are you getting tired of playing for little more than all the beer you can drink?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, maybe it's time to let a pro handle the music biz while you handle the music.

And then there are FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions).

I'm a huge fan of the FAQs format. In fact, I often tell clients that if they could have only one page on the Web, it should be a page of FAQs.

I'll leave you with this final thought:

Is your Web site doing a good-enough job of engaging your audience?