www.1001TopWords.com |
Is Your Web Site Turning Visitors Away?
One of the biggest problems with Web sites is that the very first pageon the site is turning people away. Why? Because most Web site owners talk about themselves instead oftalking about their Web site visitor. You know what I mean. How often have you visited a Web site thatstarts off with the big bold heading "Welcome to XYX Company"? And it only goes downhill from there. The next paragraph says something like "XYZ Company has worked for 40years in manufacturing, testing and selling ABC products to businessesaround North America and the world. Blah blah blah ... who cares ... Yawn!" That sort of introduction is almost guaranteed to lose you business! But why is it so common? I think it's because people don't know whatelse to write! So in this article I'm going to give you a formula for writing compellingtext on your home page. Here's the formula in a nutshell: BAD, WORSE, GOOD, HOW, YOU. Here's how it works ... I'm going to expand on these in a minute. But first notice that the firstfour are all about THEM, and you only start talking about YOU in the verylast step. OK, let's look at each of these in turn ... === 1. Show them what's BAD in their business/life. === What is your customer's biggest problem? What are they most worried about?What causes them to stay awake at night, tossing and turning? The first step is simply to state that problem. That immediately gets rapport because itshows that you understand them. And it engages them as well. For example, suppose you're a realtor looking for new clients, and youknow that most vendors are worried about getting the best price for theirhouse. You might start like this: "Selling your home is one of the biggest financial decisions that youwill make in your life. How can you be sure that you're getting the bestprice for it? And how can you be sure that your realtor is getting thebest deal for YOU, not just the best commission for themselves?" === 2. Show them that it's WORSE than they thought. === OK, you've got their attention, but do they really understand how bad theproblem is? What are the consequences of having this problem? If you diga little deeper, you'll uncover the real costs associated with it. For example, you might go on to say: "You might choose a realtor who's local, or who has been referred toyou, or maybe even some distant uncle who does this for a living. Butwhat if they don't get the best deal for you? This could cost youa fortune! For instance, even if the price they get for youis just 1% lower than what it should be, that could amount to thousands ofdollars. That's money out of YOUR pocket. And if you're planning to usethat as a deposit on your new home, that 1% will cost you many MOREthousands of dollars interest in the coming years." === 3. Show them how GOOD it could be. === OK, now you've got them worried! They might have started out as neutral,bored or complacent. But now you've shown them the real cost, they areforced to think harder about their decision. Now you show them the other side of the coin: If they didn't have thisproblem, what are the benefits to them? For example: "On the other hand, what if your agent got you 1% MORE than the normalprice? A good agent can do that for you. Now that's extra money in yourpocket! Money that you can use on a vacation. Or the college fund. Oran extra deposit on your new home, which could save you many times thatamount in interest." === 4. Show them HOW to fix it. === Now you tell them - briefly - how to fix it. Like this: "The secret of getting the best price for your house is to constantlysell its value, not its market price. If you know what your buyer'shot buttons are, you can make sure that all your marketing is aimedat pressing those buttons." === 5. Tell them how YOU can help. === Finally, you describe how YOU can help them to implement that solution,like this: "Our team of trained professionals works closely with you to get thebest possible price for your home. All of our realtors have at least10 years experience in the market, all are currently active workingwith clients just like you, and all have Blah Blah qualifications.Contact us now for a free consultation, etc. etc." === Do you see how simple this is? === I hope you can see the simplicity and elegance of the BAD / WORSE /GOOD / HOW / YOU formula. In just a few short paragraphs, it establishes rapport, demonstratesunderstanding, provides a solution, establishes your credibility,and encourages action. For another example of this process in action, visit the front pageof my Web site at http://GihanPerera.com. Gihan Perera is the author of "Make More Money From Your WebSite". Visit http://www.firststep.com.au and get your freee-book "The Seven Fatal Mistakes That Almost Every BusinessOwner Makes on Their Web Site" - PLUS free resale rights.
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Small Business Website Design - How to Get Professional Results on a Shoestring Budget Just because you are a small business with an even smaller website design budget, does not mean that you cannot have a professional looking website and presence on the web. All it means is you will have to do some of the work yourself instead of paying some design firm to do it for you. Amazingly enough, self designed pages from small business owners who did their research frequently end up being better and more focused than professionally designed pages. Consider the following suggestions when designing your own website. Website Background Colors and Graphics: What You Need to Know Before Designing Your Website Designing your website means you have to be creative, plan out exactly what you want visitors to see, and then turn these ideas into a design or relay them to a design firm so they can do the job for you. However, the problem with this is you might be coming up with a lot of ideas that are not going to work for you when it comes to the design on your web page. Do some research first about what a good design includes and what a bad design includes. Then, you might be better able to design a great website. Consider the following suggestions before you start coming up with design ideas so you will be sure to leave this out. The Proper Way to Use Images Most people will agree there is nothing more annoying than going to a site and it taking forever and a day to download all the images just so you can see the site. Then after waiting, realizing that the site is completely ugly, irrelevant,or not what you thought is was, and wasting your time. How To Shop for a Web Design Firm? While few companies can boast as we do that our first ten clients are still with us today, many companies often change Web design firms to get a new perspective on how their Web presence could look and perform. The following paragraphs serve as a Buyer's Guide to use when shopping for a new Web design company. Speed Up Or Lose Out! How To Improve Your Websites Download Speed So your web site's online and you've got high rankings in the search engines attracting lots of visitors. But the statistics tell you most of them are leaving after viewing just one page, what's gone wrong? You Need RSS, Atom, and ROR/RDF Codes on Your Website--Now You Need Google Sitemap as Well! Do you have a website? If so, you need an ROR XMLNS code button which leads to a full ROR/RDF code page for your website. This code tells search engines all about the special details you input into the code about your website. For example, it tells them special details about each particular product (or certain special ones) that you sell on your site or sites, it tells the search engine bots your contact information such as your business address and phone number (without informing the entire universe, as the code is invisible to all but you and the search engine bots examining your website), it gives info on special other links you want the search engine bots to associate with your website, and it gives any other such major info that you want the big search engines to explore and know all about from your website. How To Set Up A Professional Website On Your Own Using Web Templates To create professional websites is not an easy task by any means. There are many things that you got to take into consideration like easy navigation, strategic links, clean coding, professional layout, easy downloading, scanability, usability and so on. These are the elements that differentiate a professional website from a mediocre one. So in a way it's not designing the website that counts but how the website is designed. A Website Checklist If you've just finished building your new website (or revamping your old one), how can you be sure it's "ready for prime time"? Or maybe your site's been around for awhile and you think it may be due for a makeover. Because Web technologies, techniques and standards change so rapidly, even a website that seems "cutting edge" when it's built can look obsolete a year later. Or maybe you started out with a barebones website and finally have the time and/or money to take it to the next level. If you'd to give your website the once over, here are ten aspects you should consider: Website Design Basic Concepts So, what's in a website design anyway? And, how do you get a design that is appealing to the broad and varied tastes of all those Internet surfers out there? When Good Computers Go Bad Remember the day that you got your new computer (or the hand-me down from Uncle Larry) and you pulled that shiny case out of the box? Once you finally had all of the cables properly mangled into anunmanageable ball, you powered on, the screen lit up and off you went. The PC was fast, programs loaded in the blink of an eye, and Internet surfing was a breeze. Those were the days. How To Create A Stunning Drop Capital Effect On Your Web Pages Drop Capitals are frequently used in many newspapers, books and magazines in the offline world. You will frequently see the large capital letter sinking down into the first paragraph of articles, stories and chapters in the majority of publications you come across. You Had Me At the Search Engine You've likely heard of the movie, Jerry Maguire, with its famous line, "You had me at hello." Jerry Maguire was luckier than web sites we find in search engines. Many web sites don't attract user devotion at the first word, let alone after scanning the home page. Tableless Web Designs: Why I Switched Since I made the switch 6 months ago to a tableless design on my main site, I've noticed some interesting things:My search engine rankings have dramatically improvedMy bandwidth usage has dropped about 50-75%I can now make changes to the look and feel of my site easily by just changing the one file, the stylesheet.Let's look at why my search engine rankings improved. Now that I have less un-indexable code on my pages, the search engines can now spider my site quicker. Less code, more content, therefore a better ranking. Makes sense, doesn't it?Bandwidth costs money, and unless you have a really good hosting plan with lots of bandwidth, then your larger files will take up more room on your server, and take a lot longer to load. Tableless designs use up considerably less bandwidth and are more accessible.Every once in a while I may want to alter the look of my site. I like to change font colors, link colors, menu items, etc?Before I started using tableless designs, these changes took me hours to do. Now I just open up my stylesheet, make the changes I want, and in a few minutes I have my site updated with the new look and feel. It's so easy!For a client who wants to make their own changes, tableless designs could literally save them thousands on tech costs.Most of my clients still want sites with tables. I now give them the choice of either style. After all, the customer needs to be happy, right?Some people have the misconception that utilizing tableless designs means having a boring and less graphical site. Nothing could be further from the truth.Take a look at one of my favorite websites: http://www.csszengarden.com/. At that site you can really appreciate what can be accomplished through css-based tableless designs. Beautiful!Make the switch to a more profitable, usable, and accessible website!Copyright 2005 - Karen Blundell Keep Your Navigation Simple! Navigation must be simple. Since it's the backbone of your site, it's imperative that visitors be able to understand it. Here are two tips on how to make simplicity a reality in your site: Ten Design Mistakes to Avoid Avoid these mistakes and your site will be steps ahead of your competition. Got Web Traffic but Still Low Sales? Ten Ways to Selling Success - Part 1 Have you put a lot of effort, time, and money into your site and are frustrated with lackluster sales? Are you planning to put a new Web site and don't know where to start? Using Server Side Includes to Simplify Your Web Design An "include" file is a piece of code that can be put into a seperate file -- for example -- your navigation bar -- and then "included" in a number of other pages. This has the very useful advantage of allowing you to retain consistency over a very large number of pages, and then make changes to all of those pages by just changing the include file. Fast Web Design For The Skint Webmaster About two years ago, I had a go at commercial web site design. I put a medium-sized ad in a London classified ad paper. Nothing fancy: "Web designer seeks work ..." etc. This was expensive, about £500 for a month's run. Has Your Design Firm Run Amuck With Your Web Site? What's happening to good web site design? Somehow we creative types at interactive and traditional ad agencies have run amuck - we're building web sites that may dazzle the senses, but don't really communicate much about our client's business or products and services! 12 Essential Web Site Design Tips 1. What's the purpose? |
© Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |