Mousetrap or gourmet cheeseboard - how are you treating your readers?

This article is pure self-indulgence and doesn't tell you how to do anything in Blogger or any other tool.

But maybe it's a good day to ask whether your blog is a murderous mouse-trap, a grotty greasy-spoon, or a luscious gourmet cheeseboard.

Confluent: very cool Blogger-users

I have a lot of time for David Kutcher, who has a very useful blog-about-blogger (Blog-Xpertise) and offers more general blogging and web-consultancy from his company, Confluent forms.

They do some very cool things with Blogger.

They understand that for people who aren't either super-techs or large scale publishers using Wordpress just isn't realistic.

And they've proved that while Blogger is a great tool for getting started, it can be configured to do just about anything that needs to be done.

But they think your readers are mice!

But today I think they got it wrong.

"You need to think of your website as a digital mousetrap ... you need to get the mice to your site, encourage them to take the bait, snare them in your trap".

Initially, this sounds cute.

But stop and think about it for a moment.

How do people react when they're trapped: they panic, develop very negative emotional reactions to the place they're in, hold on to their valuables, and fight to escape. If they do escape, they tell their family and friends to stay well away.

And what's the end-game for a mouse that get's caught in a trap?  Best case, it's released somewhere in between the park down the road and the depths of Connemara - a long way from friends, family and familiar surroundings. Most likely, it meets an untimely death from eating poisoned cheese, or a blow to the head.

Is that really what you want for your customers  / visitors / readers / subscribers ?

If you want the "mice" to stick around, offer great cheese

Personally, I think of my website as an elegant cheeseboard - designed strictly for human visitors.

It offers a range of flavours and textures - the ones my visitors want, and some that stretch their palette a little.  It includes some pieces especially for visitors who are just getting started.

It's restocked regularly, with style and giving individual "cheeses" enough space, so visitors can find what they're looking for, and also notice other interesting tidbits while they're there.

It's open and accessible:   mice - and web-crawling-spiders - can visit any time they like.  More importantly, they can leave. And when they do leave, there's a nice taste in their mouth, and healthy cheese in their bellies (don't mention the cholesterol!). So they can go elsewhere, and tell their friends about the great selection over at my place. They're likely to visit again, too, because I made sure that they felt good when they left - the cheese was tasty and the environment pleasant.

There are a range of tools available - and I cut some of the the cheese into very accessible slices for those visitors who are just getting started, and leave some more robust chunks out for the mouse-about-the-town who's looking for more.

I have a warehouse of interesting ideas (in my pre-publication blog) just waiting to be finished and added to the platter.

No one dies at the end of a visit.

And I'm confident that, one day, I will be able to offer my own gourmet cheese in an exclusive section, that the mice will pay to get in to based on the trust that we've developed in the free-cheese paradise.

What sort of blog are you building, a mouse-trap or a cheeseboard?