| Internet Marketing Services |
Every Click is a Wish What an awe-inspiring thought - every person who types in a
request and makes that magic click is hoping to find that one
particular item or tidbit of information.
I often find myself telling business owners, "The only reason people come to your site is to find out if you have what they are looking for." They don't care about the fluff, how great you think your company is, how many employees you have. They also don't want to have to search all over your site for the one thing they want to know. Sites that overwhelm visitors with irrelevant information do nothing more than make the visitor frustrated, then they leave and you've lost the potential for the sale. The idea is, of course, to fulfill the wish of every visitor to your site. The more you can do this, the more often you will gain new customers. First, people decide within milliseconds, faster than an eye blink, whether or not your page has the information they want. Slow loading pages and sites that don't get to the point quickly lose visitors. Everything that is critical to making a decision about your company's product or service must be "above the fold" and easy to identify by a quick scan of the text. Since you can't (shouldn't) cram everything about your company on the front page, and you can't predict which page the visitors will enter on, the links on your site must be easy to read and identify. Use link names that clearly state what will be found on each page. Cutesy links or button names just won't cut it when it comes to helping your visitors find information. In the quest to be all things to all visitors, you may be tempted to list every product or service as a list of links or buttons - don't. Studies have shown that people need a small, finite number of selections or they quickly become overwhelmed. Be sure to include the most important information at or near the top of the page. This includes product and service links, call to action messsages and promotions. It is also a good idea to include links within bulleted lists or bold text, even if you already have a button to the same page in the site navigation. Just about every visitor will search your site in a different way, try to accomodate those differences by giving several paths through the site. Remember that each click on your site is one more step in the process to doing business with your company. The more clicks, the higher the potential that you will annoy your visitor to the point of leaving. Every step in the process must be meaningful and worthwhile to your visitors. It's always a good idea to have someone outside your organization look at your website to see how they might go about finding information. Make a list of tasks that you think a typical visitor would attempt to complete (find a particular service, purchase a specific item etc.) on the site and ask people to complete those tasks. Find out what roadblocks get in the way and try to eliminate them. Every visit to your site starts with a single click and the hope of fulfilling that one request. Do your visitors the courtesy of respecting that visit by giving them what they need to know in the easiest, least time consuming method. In the end you'll find that you have a higher percentage of visitors who become customers. ----------------------- This article written by Teajai Kimsey, Interenet Marketing Strategist, Ideas That Work - March 2008 |
What does this mean to you? Simply put, every visitor to your
site isn't "window shopping." They aren't kicking tires. They
are really interested in what you have to offer and something
led them to believe that your site had the answer. It's the
difference between prospecting (you identifying potential
customers) and positioning (the potential customer finding your
product). Tip: positioning takes less time to convert to a sale.