Does Your Website Follow this WRONG Advice?
Redesigning your website can be a lot like being parent; everyone is eager to share their advice with you – whether it’s good or bad. And unless you’re extremely experienced in the industry, it can be hard to tell which is which. One piece of advice frequently tossed around is that people won’t read a lot of copy on websites. Put everything into bullet points, they’ll say, because the less copy the better. To this advice I say, “Hogwash.” People absolutely will read copy on websites, as long as you’re smart about what you say and how you say it. What are your visitors...
read more5 Easy Ways to Make Your Site Skim-able
Is your website set up for skimmers as well as readers? People come to a website looking for something in particular. Rather than read every word on the site, they’ll skim through the pages until they find what interests them – and then they’ll read. So the trick to an effective website is to make it easy to skim, without cutting out all the important parts that will actually answer people’s questions. Here’s how you do that… 1. Clear Page Goals Every page on your website should have a purpose – and hopefully one purpose only. That keeps things nice and...
read moreWhat Goals Do Your Website Visitors Have?
It’s January, and you’re probably awash with advice on how to set goals for your business in the new year. I’d like you to switch things around. I’d like you to think about the goals your website visitors have. People come to your website for a reason. They have a specific task – a goal, if you will – that they’re trying to accomplish. Do you know what those goals are? And are you helping them meet those goals? No one has time to waste fumbling through your website. If visitors to your site can’t find what they need within 2 to 3 clicks, they’ll click that back...
read moreHow to Reassess Your Website Strategy
It’s August now, the kids are off to summer camp, and business has slowed down a little. Phew! I’m taking this opportunity to do some navel-gazing – specifically, to analyze my website. Over the past 12 months, writing website copy has taken over a big chunk of my business, and I’d like my website to reflect that. I expect that I’ll end up rewriting large portions of my home page and possibly reorganizing the content on the interior pages. Before I can begin, however, I’ve got some thinking and strategizing to do. Below are the targeted questions I’ll be asking myself...
read moreForbes Says CEOs Are Looking for Your Website
“A CEO needs to locate information on a competitor, business partner, a customer trend, or a news development. What does he or she do?” That’s the question Forbes Insights and Google recently asked 354 top executives at large U.S. companies (sales greater than $1 billion). The result of their research, the 23-page report “Rise of the Digital C-Suite,” shows that the Internet has become the chief source of business information for U.S. executives. What does this mean for your company? The report outlines two key findings you need to know: 1. The Internet is the...
read more5 Simple Rules for Effective Business Web Sites
I write quite a bit of Web copy. But when I work on online copy, before I even write the first word, I research the Web sites of my client’s competition. I need to get a feel for what else is out there in my client’s industry – both the good and the bad – so that I know how to properly position my client. And over the years, I’ve seen quite an eyeful. So here’s the benefit of my experience – 5 simple rules for an effective business Web site. Ignore them at your peril! 1. Be specific. Apparently almost every business with a Web site provides “innovative...
read moreCreate Great Web Content: Marketing Sherpa Webinar Review
Have you heard about MarketingSherpa? Their weekly newsletter is a must-read for me. It’s seriously like taking a sneak peek into your competitor’s business. They also offer occasional training, and I recently sat in on a webinar, “How to create high conversion lead generation content” – in other words, how to create web content that does a better job of converting leads into buyers. It was great stuff, and I wanted to share it with you. First, I loved their 3 ground rules for all web content, which reinforces what I always tell my clients: 1. Your website...
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