Just making an association with a content area really isn’t good enough. If you want to be remembered, regarded - or even just not ignored - be useful. It’s not a new trick but it’s something that brands can potentially do really well online.
This quote comes from the blog of Ryan Morrisson and Macmillan who are digital consultants. It is a really, really important point regarding how brands should be approaching the internet. Instead of just doing broadcast media online, they should concentrate on being as useful as possible to the people who access their site.
This relates back also to something called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO - basically trying to get your site further up the rankings on Google etc (but click the link to learn more). ONe of the ways to do this is to make your site more useful. According to Antony Mayfield:
Search engines want to know which site is most useful to whoever has entered in a search term
So that means linking to other places, putting explanations in, drawing in other ideas from other sites - basically helping people find out more, even if that involves them leaving your website for a time.