Our new President has just done a remarkable thing.

Before he suspended hearings at Guantanamo (that came on Wednesday), before he got his Secretary of State sworn in (also Wednesday), before he froze the salaries of his senior staff and enacted new lobbying rules (Wednesday), President Obama rolled out a completely revamped whitehouse.gov at noon on Tuesday, the moment he took his oath of office.

Don't go there yet.

Reflect with me for a moment.

Now, I actually visited whitehouse.gov about a week ago. I was curious if Obama had somehow made his mark on it yet, but it still read and navigated like your local municipal library's website. From 2001. It was moderately attractive, but there was lots of legacy content that seemed to have been carried over and over and over. It was a patchwork quilt of a website, some content seeming relevant and interesting, but other content seemingly outdated or shoehorned into an awkward place. What's more, that was probably the second time I'd been to the site during Bush's entire presidency. It looked something like this:



Okay. Now visit the new whitehouse.gov. Then come back so we can discuss.

"What's this?" you say. "A modern website? In my government?" It's attractive. Clean. Organized. Navigable. Dare I say "cool." Chock-full of up-to-date content.

Clearly, since winning the election President Obama's team has been hard at work preparing this site for a January 20th launch. Before he started flexing his executive powers in any way, he wanted the site in place so the American people would have a place to follow his actions.

If you look for it, you can still find the obligatory but appropriate info on past presidents, White House trivia, etc. That stuff's like the "About Us" page on your website. People will come once to read it. Once. If you want them to come back, you need to give them something new every time they come.

So far, the President's blog — which has been up for two days — has FIVE entries. His first weekly video address will come this Saturday.

I predict that the new whitehouse.gov will see traffic the likes of which it's never seen. Sure, it's a really good looking site now, but it's the fresh, timely, relevant content that will keep people coming back again and again. There are other great interactive features of the site I didn't even mention here. Go explore. You'll probably find a feature you'll want to check again in the future.

So how's your website doing? Are you giving those who would love to know more about your company and the services or products it offers fresh information all the time (and working with an ad agency that's downright passionate about doing the same)? Or are you just hoping people will return again and again to reread your eloquently worded Mission Statement?