07/ 13/ 2006
No question about it: the World Wide Web has become a powerful marketing arsenal, responsible for an ever-growing volume of profit in virtually every industry.
Whatever the trends show, at the end of the day what matters is your own Web site. Does your content have what it takes to fully engage visitors and motivate them to buy? If you're not able to answer this question, you might be missing sales volume and profit. Answer the question positively, however, and you'll enhance your competitive position in today's wired world.
Want to engage and excite your Web visitors? Get to know—and follow—these eleven simple principles:
- Make your content accessible. Use the language and terms your visitors know. Summarize key points and offers in easy-to-understand headlines and titles. Put the most important information—things your visitors really want to know fast—on your home page and at the top of subsidiary pages.
- Make your content complete. Some visitors will want or need more than a brief introduction to your company or products. To meet their needs, include background information, like product specs, technical capabilities, case reports, and other detail customers ask about. Place this material in secondary or tertiary positions on the site, accessed by easy-to-find links.
- Make your content fast. One of the easiest ways to add speed to your site is to keep your text simple and direct, using lots of outline points, charts, and short paragraphs. Unless most of your visitors have high-speed connections, avoid video and multi-media applications on your site; stick to text and simple graphics that load quickly.
- Make your content interactive. Interactivity can mean games and quizzes that engage visitors. Some examples: A 15-question "which product line is right for you?" quiz or a visitor-driven "design your own service" program feature. But if you can't build puzzles and quizzes, don't worry. Simply giving visitors a chance to "talk back" through question-and-answer features or "comment" utilities work equally well.
- Make your content inviting. Throughout your site, include benefit-rich descriptions as you introduce products and services to visitors. Let them know just how easy it is to get quick price quotations, answers to questions, and high-quality results. And whenever possible, use the most powerful marketing word available: free. Offer visitors free reports, e-newsletters, samples or other items with perceived value.
- Make your content networked. The beauty of the Web is its ability to easily take visitors wherever they need to go. Whenever you hit upon an important message in your content (like a detailed description of a product, a case study, or technical reference material), insert a hyperlink, allowing your visitor to click and move to a part of the site that elaborates further. Or, when it's appropriate, offer visitors a link that takes them to a complementary site.
- Make your content organized. Build your content around the six to eight subjects your visitors will be most concerned about. Place links to pages containing that subject matter at the top or upper left corner of your home page, and at the base of the home page—and in similar positions on other pages as well. Material of immediate concern to customers, such as new products, special offers, industry news, or key business messages, should appear on a "what's-new" section of the home page. Alternatively, this material can begin there and then "jump" to a secondary page.
- Make your content personal. If you have the technical capability, allow visitors to set up their own Web-based accounts containing order needs and interests, order history and desired information. If you can't go this far, give visitors the opportunity to furnish you with personal data—and use the data to provide customized e-mail and print messages to customers based on their interests. Just as important, keep your side of the text personal as well, by including comments about yourself, your staff and your background using personal, conversational prose.
- Make your content relevant. When you're trying to decide what topics should be covered on your home page and your secondary pages, ask yourself: What questions do customers most frequently ask? What are your customers' most compelling needs and fears? What "hot buttons" have prompted customers to buy in the past? Once you settle on your content, think about the best way to present it. Don't limit yourself to conventional text; consider things like customer letters, FAQs, brief case studies and testimonials, questions-and-answers or "conversations" with your employees, and other attention-building tools.
- Make your content simple. Organize material using one of the standard hierarchical tools (such as most to least important, comparison, or first to last). Avoid filling the site with "brochureware." Instead, condense detailed material into short, concise, bullets and blocks of text. Use short sentences and informal diction.
- Make your content timely. Every month, check your site for out-of-date statistics, dates and data. More frequently—perhaps every week or even every day, if you have significant Web traffic—place breaking information and news, fresh links, and up-to-date commentary on your site. Fresh content keeps your visitors' attention truly engaged. And even if they don't need the information you're providing right away, timely content ensures that visitors perceive you as an adept and valuable partner.
