If you run an online news site, Jonathan Dube from CyberJournalist.net has some great ideas for improving it in 101 Ways to improve your News Site. If you run a regular blog or website, many of these ideas are transferable.

I’ve picked out some of my favourite tips and given some suggestions how this could apply to your blog or website.

(1) Post a form at the end of a breaking news story asking witnesses to send in details of what they saw — and then add the information you can verify to the story.

These links are all over my local paper’s website. You may not be in business of chasing up witnesses to breaking news stories, but many of the blog posts and website pages you make could be made better by asking readers to share their tips, experiences and ideas. If you write a post on your favourite chocolate chip recipe, ask your readers to add their favourite chocolate chip recipe in the comments

(8) Give everyone in your company one day off a month to work on whatever project they want or simply just brainstorm new ideas

For many people now, their blogs ARE their business and do replace either part time or full time jobs. But as Michael Gerber in the E-myth commented on running bricks and mortar businesses, you need to work ON your business, on just IN it. For your blog or website, you should take at least one day out, away from what you normally do and websites you normally visit to think of fresh ideas. Google gives their employees time each week to work on some cool project or idea outside of their normal work and it seems to be working for them- that’s how Gmail is believed to have started.

(12) Give people who register for your site incentive to keep giving you updated information.

If people do contribute to your site, remember to reward them - this could even just be acknowledgement but the occasional giveaway or prize wouldn’t hurt.

(15) Double the size of all photos on your site for a week. See how readers react. Wanna bet you decide to keep at least some of them larger permanently?

Unless you’re a graphic designer, the design and images on sites can play second fiddle to the content. For some sites, this is completely the right approach, but for most others image and design play a very important role in how your readers evaluate your site and make decisions on how long to stay or which stories to click on. So try doubling your photos, change some of the colours, change your font, change your whole theme and see what happens.

(33) Let your readers post certain classifieds for free.

(44) Offer an online coupon section

Think about how you can add extra value to a reader’s visit to your site. Maybe a coupon section or a classifieds section would be really useful (especially if no one else is doing it in your particular niche). Maybe you could add on a wiki to your site, or a forum, maybe a directory of resources. Try and think outside the box.

(45) Click-and-buy prints option on all online photos

Also think out of the box on how to monetise your site. Above all, if you’re going to offer something for sale - make it convenient. When you talk about it, make sure you have a link to the sales page right there so your reader (and potential customer) doesn’t have to search through your site for it.

(46) Have readers send in photos and make slide shows from them

This is such a cute idea! And you know it works for so many niches. If you had a tech blog, you could ask for readers to send in screenshots of their desktops or souped up computer boxes, if you had a cupcake blog then get readers to send in pics of their last cupcake. If you have a product, you could ask your past customers to send a pic of them using your product. Or you could even have something completely off-topic and just use it as a relationship building exercise. [Edit - Slide is a cool free tool that can help you do this].

(47) Pick the best posts on your message boards and highlight them in separate features — or on your home page — so readers don’t have to dig through

Value the contribution that your readers (and/or customers) can provide. If they write great comments, pull the best ones out and use them in a post. Same for forums - if you have a blog and a forum, report on what’s happening in the forum, using some choice quotes, on your blog. If you have blog-less website, get a blog - but even without a blog, you can create a page of great customer tips and advice (after all, if you have a product or service, you probably have testimonials).

(49) Set up online town hall meetings (i.e. chats) with local political candidates

You can hold an interactive blog post - let your readers know you’ll be online at a particular time and you can have a conversation in the comments. You can hold a teleseminar or a webinar or a live TV show or streaming podcast. You can bring along someone interesting to your readers - an expert in your niche - for extra pulling power. If you provide a service, you could do a free group consultation. If you have a product, you could have someone answer questions about it.

(60) Hold short story contests and print winners online

Everyone loves a contest - and you can get great content out of it. You can ask for your reader’s favourite tech tip for a tech blog, favourite childhood story for a parenting site, favourite recipe, etc. If you have a product or service, ask for a story or tip that features whatever it is that you’re selling.

(62) Tell an entire story that would normally be written in plain text entirely through a slide show

This is similar to tip (46) but it is very different. Tip (46) was about profiling your readers/customers so that they feel involved in your website. This tip (62) is about presenting your content in an innovative way so as to catch your reader’sattention and have them connect to your content at another level. Using a slideshow appeals to different parts of your reader’s brain and can increase their connections than just plain text. Putting it into a slideshow may explain something in a much more simple way. But, even more importantly, it could be a cool and different way to present it - if you make it easy to share your slideshow, you give it an opportunity to go viral.

(65) Make online display ads interactive — games, quizzes, etc — to grab readers attention (and of course charge extra for these!)

If you do run advertising, then by all means consider allowing and encouraging interactive advertising if it doesn’t distract from your site. But even if you don’t, look for ways to increase the interactivity of your website. You don’t need to be a flash programmer, there’s plenty of free stuff out there that you can embed into your blog posts or on your website (like You Tube videos).s

(67) Give all reporters digital audio recorders and digital cameras to take out on stories to get material for posting on Web

See yourself as a reporter for your blog or even static website. It’s easy enough through services like YouTube to add video to your site for free. Invest in a cheap portable recorder/camera/video and use it to bring more life and colour to your website.

(73) Use the Web to ask readers for fresh ideas. Actually read them. Choose at least one and actually do it.

Remember that being on the web is a form of communication and just as in real life, the best relationships are formed when that communication is two-way. Blogs are brilliantly set up for this - enable your comments and don’t be afraid to ask your readers questions - ask them what is their greatest problem, what blog posts they want to see, ask them for ideas for solutions to your problems. And you don’t just need a blog - it’s easy enough to link to a survey on a non-bloggy website. Offer a small prize for contributing (or give them something free). But if you do ask and they reply, make sure your readers can see you listening. Do something with what they’ve told you, if they see you listening, they are more likely to help you out in the future.

(79) Develop an online corrections policy (or reassess and improve one if you actually have one).

(80) Add online elements to your company-wide ethics policy (or create a company-wide ethics policy that covers the web if no policy exists)

It’s good to know in advance what you will and won’t do - and having them written down to refer to so that you have more of a chance at being consistent.  Will you do paid reviews? If so, what’s your policy with them? Will you accept advertising? What’s your policy as far as affiliate linking?

Likewise, having a corrections policy gives you a clear framework when problems arise on your blog - it’s good to know what are your rules when faced with spelling mistakes, wrong information and the need for updated information in your posts as well as offensive or problematic comments from your audience. You may also want to let your readers know about some or all of these policies - especially if you have particular rules (eg no political opinions, using real names, promoting businesses in comments).