Yesterday, my husband and I hosted a party to celebrate our daughter’s eighth birthday. One of her favorite gifts was a Webkinz toy given to her by a neighbor. I had heard of Webkinz before, but since I’m the type of mom who likes to wait until my kids are as old as possible before introducing them to toys made my companies that blur the line between online games and advertisements, she had never had a Webkinz before.

After helping her long onto the site, I observed carefully as she set up her account. She clicked a few icons and quickly clicked on “Help,” where she discovered that, not only could she play games, but she could play games with other people.

While she could compete against herself in the games, from that moment on, her only mission was to find out how she could use Webkinz to meet other people.

As a mother, I was excited to see her learn that she could use the Internet to cultivate and maintain relationships. As a small business owner, I was excited to see in real, practical terms how important it is that our websites not only sell our products, but also encourage relationships.

As a small business owner, you must maintain websites that make it fun and easy for your guests to connect with other people. If that doesn’t happen, they won’t stay around for long. And you know what that means.

Question: What have you learned from watching people use online technologies? What adjustments are you making to your website(s) to capture their attention?