Spend time planning your Web site. Before you design a page or write a word, get a visual, and mental picture of your preferred audience. Your visitors will spend up to 10 seconds on your home page, so plan accordingly. Draw your specific audience's attention with compelling headings that include benefits that will solve their problems. 1. Define your preferred audience. Picture them as you create your home page. Create an audience profile including their special needs and concerns. Make sure your Web site solves their problem, and it has a lot of information that will help your visitors. 2. Make your home page simple and easy to read so it will load fast and not make potential customers wait. Include benefits and a few testimonials. Forget the large photos or spinning and flashing signs that distract. Put navigation bars (topics of other pages) on the side or top to lead your visitors to different pages. You may name them: seminars, teleclasses, free articles, archived past eMagazines, products page, testimonials, and how to order page. 3. Send an email survey to your potential buyers to skyrocket your Web sales. Ask them, which titles and benefits would make you want to buy? If you have a service, ask them what the number one question they have about Web marketing is. From their feedback, make every word count on every Web page. Dramatic headlines with specific benefits lure visitors to read, then buy. One author changed his copy from "Money-Saving tips on Car Buying, Leasing, Repairs and Insurance Reduction Tips" to "How to Buy a Car at $50 Over Dealer Cost." He discovered why his surveyed customers bought it. More of them wanted to buy a new car far more than the other benefits he offered. When he changed the title, sales increased by over 300% in 48 hours. 4. Put a sales letter on your home page aimed at your major product or service. Some experts write very long ones, others, like myself, write short copy. Check and test every part, every navigation bar, and every link to see how it works. If you are selling a product or service, test your headline and your copy. Replace dull copy with passionate testimonials, even for your ezine. Be sure to research and include everything that will make your home page sing. Check out the site www.stopyourdivorce.com. Only one sales letter sold $300,000 in books this last year. 5. Check out all the rest of your site. A good tweak before your guests arrive will bring you many more positive results. Check your headlines. Do they lead to a motivating story, rather than right to your products? Check your offer. Did you include a free bonus report? Check your prices. Low cost isn't always best. Let your products reflect your professional status. Check your layout--how you lead the prospect to your order page. Check your ordering process. Will your orders come back with proper information on them? You may also want to test the use of color, type style, and copy. In fact, test everything you put out to your Web site visitor. Friends and associates can be your friendly sounding board. 6. Include a lot of content, and make it easy to reach. Your visitor should be able to click and receive your "gold" in seconds. At the end of each free article your offer include a link to your products, teleclasses, or services page. Each article may steer your visitor to a different place. 7. Don't worry about being high in the search engines. Just create a user-friendly, easy to navigate, site with meaningful content and submit it manually to the search engines. You can get a list of submission links at http://www.bytesworth.com/submit_urls.asp. You don't need thousands of hits a day on your Web site. When you plan and test your Web site content, you will bring qualified, targeted, repeat buyers. Judy Cullins 2004 All Rights Reserved. |
