In August I turn 40. It's an odd feeling — one that dredges up thoughts of relevance in the universe and questions of what the future will bring. Will I be doing the same thing next year or five years from now? Will I fraternize with the same group of friends? Will people leave my life either by choice or circumstance? Will I have the same interests?
I also am pondering what the future holds for ChemicalProcessing.com. Much like managing my personal life, I am challenged with managing the direction of the website — and asking the same questions about relevance and interest. Unlike my personal life, I have hard data that tell me what's working and what needs work.
From those data I can surmise a few things: Visitors (you) come into the site for a specific reason and leave. Presumably, an article, news item, blog entry or product caught your eye via an e-newsletter, Facebook or Twitter post and you investigated, found what you wanted and clicked back to where you came from. Obviously, there are other ways to get to our online content, but the metrics show that most users are page-in and page-out users. This scenario brings me to one of my crossover questions: Are you leaving by choice or by circumstance? For my sake, I hope it's just circumstance. You were doing something else when you were enticed to visit ChemicalProcessing.com. You got what you wanted and left to continue your original task.
With that information in my pocket, I now have to figure out how to get you to forget all about what you were doing before you came to our site and immerse yourself in all the resources, case studies, and multi-media options we have available to help you be efficient, safe, competitive and entertained.
[pullquote]I am compiling a to-do list that is designed to better serve you when you land at our site. In the coming months I hope to:
• Give CP Insiders — visitors who register with us — a profile page where they can bookmark content, interact with other registered users and view peer-suggested content.
• Create niche websites that will immerse visitors in materials particularly relevant to their slice of the chemical processing industry.
• Offer more interactive experiences to create a community where questions are answered and relationships are fostered.
• Highlight Chemical Processing's web-exclusive content — and provide more of it. We have a host of experts at the ready to help you.
• Build a continuing-education portal for you to easily access training opportunities.
Personally, I also have put together a to-do list. I call it my bucket list — not because I think my life is over at 40, but because all the things on the list will take me decades to accomplish.
Here's to crossing items of both lists!
Traci Purdum is Chemical Processing's senior digital editor. You can send her birthday wishes to [email protected].