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What Is The Purpose Of Your Website?

Your Visitors Need To Know

Your visitors have to know what your Website offers within seconds of arrival, because if they have to wade through information to find out, the chances are they will leave you without ever knowing its purpose. What is worse, they will probably never return!

You know the principle function of your Website (hopefully), and you have to ensure that your headline and first paragraph of copy purvey that information in simple words that are quick to read and easy to understand.

The chances are you already know this, but does your Website reflect this knowledge? Unfortunately, some 75% of Websites do not make it abundantly clear to their visitors exactly what they can expect to find on their pages. The statistics of these Websites will reveal the sad answer; their visitors stay only for a short time, visit only one or two pages, and take no positive action.

How Can You Tell Them?

There is a boring trend towards excessively large, bold, and long headlines that almost fill the space ‘above the fold’, and hopefully these have been tested against the more traditional style of headline that has proved successful for decades, or those Website will be losing business.

The professional copywriter will tell you ‘never use two words where one will do the job’ and if you want to capture the attention of a new visitor to your Website, you headline must be brief and relevant.

Look at this example from a presumably successful Website:

Imagine Today You Put Into Motion A Few Small Actions That In Just A Few Weeks Delivered An Unstoppable Flood Of Traffic And Sales In Which The Only Way You Could Shut It Off Would Be To Call Your Web Host And Insult His Mother!

I have not used the same large font that was on the Website, but even at this size, it is necessary to read it a couple of times before you fully understand the message. Surely, this message is quicker to read, and easier to understand in a precise statement that makes the reader want to learn more.

How To Get More Traffic Than Your Website Can Handle!

The objective of your headline is to make the reader move to your first paragraph and continue reading; you promised something in the headline, and you must start to deliver, or lose your reader. This means your first paragraph must contain information that leaves the reader in no doubt that the Website can deliver the goods and fulfil the promise.

The objective of the first paragraph is to make the visitor read the second paragraph, and so on until they reach the point where you ask them to act; this means to buy your product, register for a newsletter, or supply their contact details in return for the download of a useful product, eBook, or software.

Do You Confuse Your Visitor?

This is so easy to do, because all you have to do is ask them to make multiple decisions, and they will stop dead in their tracks. You have a great landing page, wonderful headline, and marvellous copy and sub-heads all the way down your page.

However, when they reach the call to action, they see the ‘Buy Now’ button, and while their cursor is hovering over it, they see the links at the bottom of the page: Free Newsletter, Affiliates, Mailing List, and much more.

Worse, they see a small form, which offers them a free report or eBook if they subscribe; and so they do not buy your lovely product. They many not even subscribe to your newsletter, despite the great offer of your free ‘whatsit’, because they are now confused. In the back of their minds, they hear their old grandma saying, “When in doubt, do nowt!”

Have One Objective

When you are driving traffic to your Website, especially if you are buying that traffic with advertising, make sure of your objective and only ask your visitor the one question.

1. Buy Now! If you are selling a low-priced product or service;
2. Register Now! If you wish to gather contacts for future mailings;
3. Download Now! If you offer free reports, in exchange for contact details

Under any circumstances, do not, have any links on that sales page except to the necessary and all-important pages that open in another Window. These include your privacy statement, your guarantee, your contact form, and your about page, which tells them who you are and where you reside.

Watch Your Figures Climb

This all sounds so basic and simple, the chances are you will close this article and make no changes to your Website. However, I guarantee that if you write a landing page along the above lines, you will find it performs better than any page your currently have on your Website.

Try it, now!

© Copyright 2007. Brian Hunt. All Rights Reserved.

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