It’s time that someone does straight talk about making a website successful and I am going to try and to that today. Hold on to your socks and pay attention because if you get this you’ve got it.
OK, lets get started.
We all know about people out there claiming they can help make your website a success. There are the “marketing” experts that say you have to focus on keywords and optimize your website for those keywords. However, what they don’t say is that a half million people are using the same tactic for the same keyword and if you use that key word in search engine marketing campaigns, the price of getting noticed goes up substantially.
Now, I’m no math genius, but if a half million people are trying the same tactic for the same keyword, and only 10 listings can be at the top of a search engine listing, I estimate that there are going to be a lot of people left frustrated with the results of their hard work and marketing expenditures. Putting in money, time and work and getting very little benefit is difficult to swallow and discouraging.
Sure, the search engines tend to juggle the listings around now and then. But for the most part, the amount of work done doesn’t yield the desired result for most. Website owner’s start to feel like they are all alone and that no one cares about their website and what they are trying to accomplish. Am I right so far?
Truth be told, it’s true. No one cares. That is the whole reason that marketing is necessary. They don’t care about your website or product. What they care about most is the problem they have in their life. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic problem like a police officer banging on their door after finding out they have done something illegal. It can be something as simple as a clogged sink. But the fact is that you need to look for their problem and cater to solving it. Making yourself useful however isn’t as simple as that. Sometimes they don’t know they have a problem or they aren’t bothered by the problem enough to search out a solution. That is where you come in. You should always inform the user of the problem before attempting to sell them anything. The reason for this is that if they are aware of the problem, you have identified with them and they have identified with your website. If they weren’t previously aware of the problem, they get educated about it and the first solution they know for what bothers them is what you are selling.
Now that we have covered that, we can get to the meat of what this article is about. If you are looking for the same old marketing rhetoric and cliché-laden commentary you are in the wrong place. If you are looking to make your website a success, keep reading. I’m not pulling any punches today.
OK, have you ever heard the term “click through”? Sure you have. So-called marketing experts have bombarded website owners with this term for years. In many cases, website owners adopt terminology that they hear without properly processing it’s meaning or benefit. Click thoughs should not be the standard by which you measure your website’s performance. So, stop it right now. Remember the statement that no one cares about your website? You have to make them care. You should change your standard of measurement to Read-Throughs. (I’ll show you how to get read - throughs further on) Click Thoughs and Read Throughs are not the same thing.
You can easily have a million click throughs and still not make one sell. However, it is highly unlikely that you can have a million read throughs and not make a sell.
Why is this you ask? A click through is a very non-committal thing. If you will check your website logs you will find that many click thoughs last only 5 seconds or less. In these instances, what have you gained from the transaction? What can you explain in 5 seconds? Not much. If you don’t get the opportunity to explain why your site or product is so great or why they need to consider your site as one of their online hangouts to be revisited, what have you gained? You gain nothing but frustration as you consistently watch your goals go unmet.
Remember, the statement no one cares about your website. Again, it remains true. However, Read Thoughs have the power to change the whole equation. Irrespective of why a person arrives at your website, if you get a read though, you have the powerful opportunity to shape their thinking. Think I am kidding? Consider this.
I was recently in the market for a new cell phone. Being a businessman and having heard glowing reports about the Black Berry phone I went to buy the phone at a store. When I got there, I was fascinated with the sleek lightweight device I had heard so much about. I talked to a sales person and noticed that he had a black berry on his hip. The manager came over, and guess what? He had a black berry on his hip as well. I thought wow; those phones must be the very best. Now here comes the shocker. As I spoke with them about all that I wanted to do with the phone. They began to explain to me that the BB could not create Word documents, PowerPoint documents and Excel spread sheets, it could only view them if someone sent you one. He explained to me that if I wanted to have that type of in-depth use of the phone, I needed to go with the ATT Tilt cell phone which I had barely heard anything about. I asked why they carried a BB and I got two answers “I don’t know” and “I just like it”. That wasn’t enough for me. I bought the Tilt and I love it.
Millions of dollars went into the advertising of the Black Berry; I saw examples of people using it and these were people that had the choice of carrying any phone they wanted. Yet, when they conveyed to me the benefits of the ATT Tilt my mind was changed. I made the purchase and haven’t looked back.
I said all of that to say this. Your website is your 24 hour convincer. It should be designed and written to capture the curious and lead them to a purchase. However, without true communication, the ability to do that is lost. A click through is the equivalent of getting the customer through the door. A read through is getting the customer through the door and speaking with him about why your product is so great and why he/she needs it.
I was in the market for a particular product and because of communicated benefits, I ended up buying a totally different product which cost $40 more.
Your competition is the BB. Whether your product is the best or not is debatable but as you can see, it is often enough just to get the potential buyer to know more about your product than the competitions. I had heard about the BB I was ready to buy. I later heard about the Tilt and the sale was made. I submit to you that the more one learns about a product and how it fits their need or problem, the more likely they are to buy it. Or the more a person learns about a website and how it meets their need, the more likely they are to revisit it over and over again. Look in your own bookmarks, and you will find website’s that truly communicated with you. What percentage of websites that you have visited got placed in your bookmarks? A very small percentage I’m sure. The ones in your bookmarks provided something that you needed or wanted and the only way they could have shown you that is by true communication/Read Through.
OK, how do you convert your click throughs to read throughs? It is quite simple actually. You have to make your potential visitors care enough about your text to read every word of it.
To do this you simply use a tactic called error marketing. Error marketing is the method of drawing web surfer’s to your web properties by offering a small monetary reward to them for help in locating certain types of errors on your website. You can do this really easily by listing your website on low cost advertising websites like TypoBounty dot com.
Web surfers come to your website and read every word offered on your website for an opportunity to find an error. That’s how you make them care about your text. In the mean time they read more of what you have to offer and consider your entire sales pitch. The best part is that because they spend more time on your website, reading every word, they remember your website and products. This increases the likelihood of increased product sells.
The benefit of advertising for less than 10 dollars and causing web surfers to catch the full impact of your sales pitch as they read everything you have to offer, while perfecting your website simultaneously is invaluable to website owners.
Make them care about your text and let your text convince them to buy. Using Error Marketing techniques through sites like TypoBounty dot com accomplishes this. You basically put your website’s success on auto-pilot.
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