ARTICLE: The Website Game
A few days ago, I gave a presentation to our local BRE group. The topic was based around, what I call the website game. I use this term because I believe that doing business from your website is like a game. Just like a game of chess, for example, where every move counts and takes you to a winning conclusion, so getting your website to do business for you requires a number of moves.
Consider the moves:
Move 1 - Getting people to see your site - Unless your site is visible, no one will see it and you'll get no visitors. You have to advertise it. On search engines, through pay-per-click, banners or simply a yellow pages ad.
Move 2 - Getting people to stay and read your site - It's no use getting visitors to you site if the take one look and click away from it. You need to make the site appealing to capture your visitors' attention. You have about 5-10 seconds to do that before they lose interest and click away. Make the site appealing with, firstly, a professional look and then, secondly, a headline that will capture their attention. "Welcome to my website" won't do that. How many people have that headline on their home page??
Move 3 - Getting visitors to take action - Your website has a purpose - or it should have! That could be to make an enquiry by phone or by filling in an enquiry form. Or it might be to buy a product or products from an online shop. Whatever it is, your site needs to be worded and structured so that the visitors will be steered through to taking that action. Similar to the way that supermarkets steer people through the store using special offers along the way. That is the job of the web copy and the navigation.
Get these 3 moves right and you win the game - or win the customer! The key to this is, however, that these 3 moves have to work together. It's no use spending a fortune on bringing visitors to your site if the site is so bad that they immediately click away. Similarly, it's no use spending a fortune getting a site developed that the dog's whatsits if your not prepared to spend money and effort to get visitors to the site.
And, my final point, which relates to site design. Site design is much more than the look of the site. As I said above, you need a professional design. But more importantly you need headlines that will attract people's attention and compel them to read the copy. And then you need good copy that will drive them to take action and ultimately do business with you.
Happy gaming.
Consider the moves:
Move 1 - Getting people to see your site - Unless your site is visible, no one will see it and you'll get no visitors. You have to advertise it. On search engines, through pay-per-click, banners or simply a yellow pages ad.
Move 2 - Getting people to stay and read your site - It's no use getting visitors to you site if the take one look and click away from it. You need to make the site appealing to capture your visitors' attention. You have about 5-10 seconds to do that before they lose interest and click away. Make the site appealing with, firstly, a professional look and then, secondly, a headline that will capture their attention. "Welcome to my website" won't do that. How many people have that headline on their home page??
Move 3 - Getting visitors to take action - Your website has a purpose - or it should have! That could be to make an enquiry by phone or by filling in an enquiry form. Or it might be to buy a product or products from an online shop. Whatever it is, your site needs to be worded and structured so that the visitors will be steered through to taking that action. Similar to the way that supermarkets steer people through the store using special offers along the way. That is the job of the web copy and the navigation.
Get these 3 moves right and you win the game - or win the customer! The key to this is, however, that these 3 moves have to work together. It's no use spending a fortune on bringing visitors to your site if the site is so bad that they immediately click away. Similarly, it's no use spending a fortune getting a site developed that the dog's whatsits if your not prepared to spend money and effort to get visitors to the site.
And, my final point, which relates to site design. Site design is much more than the look of the site. As I said above, you need a professional design. But more importantly you need headlines that will attract people's attention and compel them to read the copy. And then you need good copy that will drive them to take action and ultimately do business with you.
Happy gaming.
