When you give a cocktail party, you make your home beautiful and offer refreshments. You engage your guests by making the evening about them — introducing them to other friends and finding out what’s new in their lives. Making them feel special, yes?

Cocktail parties that are all about the host quickly peter out. No one wants to listen to the host pontificate about his or her collection of martini glasses, ceramics, or beanie babies, and where each one came from. Your web site mission is not to be a bible or an encyclopedia of you. Your web site mission is to serve your customers, to help them find what they came to your web site to find.

So, “web marketing is like a cocktail party?”

As the metaphorical “cocktail party,” your web site needs to welcome guests and make the evening be about them, not you.

Do that, and your guests will keep returning.

Here’s a home renovation web site that’s all about the host (http://davismasonbuilders.com/).

And here’s a home renovation web site that’s all about the guests (http://www.hometips.com/).

Can you name the differences?