On a lazy Sunday afternoon as you are perusing your local bookstore, do you ever wonder why you are attracted by certain book covers? Why is it that certain covers catch your eye, whereas others leave you completely unmoved?
Although it may never be explained scientifically, the way in which potential clients peruse the web might be very similar, therefore, your website design had better give them instant gratification or else, they will move on. Moving on without clicking is a term referred to by Google as bouncing. Bouncing on the web and in Googles eyes is NOT good. Bouncing essentially means that your website was selected from the search list, someone accessed it and then moved back to the search list to view other options. Within seconds, this person made the decision, without going past the cover, to leave and move on. Not good! Not too many sales are made that way and your company will likely not remain in this person’s conscious or unconscious mind.
To use a quote from Bunny Rabbit in the movie 8-mile: “Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted, one moment Would you capture it, or just let it slip?”
Internet marketing, specifically search-engine optimization will help you get to the top of Google's search list but then your website must be able to grasp the person right away. At this point, the potential customer, who knows what they want, cannot simply be wooed by flashy colours and nice pictures.
As Jason Fried mentions in his article Why is Business Writing So Awful? “...a company makes its first impression on would-be customers or partners with words.” Therefore, don't go wasting the seconds you have with empty words such as “Welcome to my website”, the time it takes to read this, you may have lost them. Don’t waste your time, or theirs, instead, give them something: “Adeo helped us improve our site navigation, our content is more interesting and we have increased sales.”
Another critical point is to know who your target audience is and to cater to them, and them only. As Fried mentions, you cannot “sell to every customer.”
When someone has reached your site be sure to not yawn them with useless information. Show them what you can do for them and, for goodness sakes, make it interesting! Forget the boring business writing. You can wow them with your intelligence when they contact you in person, for now, let’s face it folks, you’ve got to dazzle them and you have a very short window of opportunity to do so!