Tweet

Best Practices: Converting Viositors with Sizzling Web Content

Written by: John Gillett

Article Overview: While search strategies for driving more prospects to your web site can be a vital part of your marketing plan, it's even more important that you convert those prospects to customers. To be effective, web content must speak to the immediate needs of visitors, using a consistent tone and style that they can recognize. More importantly, web content should be straightforward and arranged to make information gathering easy for visitors in each stage of the sales cycle. The best practices included in this paper will help you to create web content that converts web visitors into solid leads and buyers.

Best Practices: Converting Viositors with Sizzling Web Content

Web sites are becoming the centerpieces for the marketing efforts of many of today's most successful technology companies. While search strategies for driving more prospects to your web site can be a vital part of your marketing plan, it's even more important that you convert those prospects to customers.

To be effective, web content must speak to the immediate needs of visitors, using a consistent tone and style that they can recognize. More importantly, web content should be straightforward and arranged to make information gathering easy for visitors in each stage of the sales cycle.

As you revise current or create new web content, refer to these best practices to help you convert web visitors into solid leads and buyers.

Know Your Audience
Before you begin the process of writing, take some time to consider who your audience is and what they want from you. How many audiences do you have (consumer, business, technical)? What does your audience need? What is most important to them? What are they least likely to care about? What do you want your audience to think, learn, or assume about you? Use the answers to help drive your strategy and your writing.

Example: Trend Micro, a leading provider of PC security solutions, uses its web site to speak to four distinct audiences-consumers, small businesses, medium businesses, and enterprises-and directs each audience to user-appropriate information.

Write For Humans, Not Web Crawlers
While optimizing web content specifically for search engines will boost traffic, it can dramatically reduce your conversion rates when it doesn't address the needs of your audience. First and foremost, copy should hold your readers' interest. Boring copy or lengthy descriptions of your products for the sake of SEO can overwhelm your readers and actually turn away potential customers.

Example: Instead of focusing solely on search engine results, Palm, a pioneer in the development of smart phones, opts for web site impact with minimal written content on its home page and brief, elegant descriptions that put a priority on clarity, readability, and consistent tone.

Make It Crystal Clear
Most visitors to your web site won't stay for more than a few seconds if the content does not instantly address their needs. To attract visitors in every stage of the sales cycle, the content must entice them to take the next step, plunging deeper into your brand through the clarity and simplicity of your web copy until they are ready to make a buying decision.

Example: Appistry, a premier developer of cloud application platforms, introduces visitors to its brand with a concise description of what it provides and who it serves. Its site is rich in step-by-step information that visitors need for the decision-making process, with clear access to case studies, data sheets, white papers, press releases, third-party reviews, and analysis.

Define Your Voice
Your design, images, and copy all combine to convey your company or brand's personality. Of all of these, we would argue that copy is perhaps the most important element for conveying your website's personality or voice. If your company were a person, who would it be? Here are some ideas: Get consensus on your company's personality type. Get consensus on three adjectives that describe your company or brand: loyal, fun-loving, friendly, trustworthy, playful, reliable, formal, informal, irreverent, gutsy, etc. Determine how your brand/personality is different from the competition.

Example: SupportSoft, a global provider of technology support and value-added services, uses a friendly, inviting voice that speaks to audience needs. From one page to the next, visitors receive a strong and consistent message about the company's values and products.

Make Your Content Scannable
Writing for the web is different than writing for print, because people read differently online. Actually, people don't tend to read online at all-they scan. They look at headings; they scan for hyperlinks, numbers, and keywords; and they jump around, scrolling and clicking for key information. Can they find it quickly on your website?

Example: PGP, a global leader in data encryption software, employs a combination of bold subheads and bulleted copy that makes it easy for visitors to determine if a page includes information they can use.

Invite Them To Take The Next Step
A key to converting visitors into qualified leads and buyers is making action easy. Each web page should contain at least one clear call to action. Ideally, your calls to action should be placed at the right point to lead visitors through the sales cycle. One visitor may respond to a phone number while another wants to schedule a personal demonstration. In any case, calls to action should be strong, clear, and easy for visitors to act upon immediately.

Example: Cisco, a global giant in networking and communications technology, offers multiple calls to action on each page of its web site, allowing visitors to make choices that suit their immediate needs.

Convert your web visitors to customers!
McLellan Creative's team of technology marketing writers helps simplify the process of developing powerful content that engages web visitors and guides them through the sales cycle.

Let's Talk! Contact McLellan Creative today to start planning your web site content strategy.

Related Articles
  Content Marketing Principles and Practices
  Overcoming Objections 101
  How to Convert PowerPoint to MPEG
  Five Things To Consider When You Create Content For Your Business Website
  What’s Hot and What’s Not in Public Relations

Article Tags: boring copy, consistent tone, consumer business, conversion rates, distinct audiences, information gathering, lengthy descriptions, marketing efforts, marketing plan, medium businesses, pc security, search engine results, search engines, search strategies, smart phones, successful technology, trend micro, web crawlers, web visitors, written content



Related Forum Posts
Re: Meta Tags - [quote="ChrisH":tzc1bohg]I'm just curious what you all think -- - How important do you think meta tags are? If the content is keyword optimized and they are being used correctly (as per Google's current instructions) how important are meta tags?? Chris[/quote:tzc1bohg] Metatags were very important 10 years ago. Now, search engines are smarter... There are 2 very important things on your page: 1/ Page title: make sure to place some keywords in your title (avoid title like "welcome to my website, great information resource". You are wasting prime keyword real estate. 2/ Content. Content. Content. Content. Content. Oh, did I mention content?? Your content as to mention your main keywords several times. 3/ <h> and <b> tags are very important too. They tell search engines you emphasize these keywords.
Re: Best looking social networking site? - Hi Kevin [quote:3h76yt08]With so many social networking sites to pick and choose from, what influences your decision to join a particilar site? Is it just your friends, the content, people using it or looks??[/quote:3h76yt08] For me, the most essential criteria in selecting a Social Networking Site is its Content followed closely by popularity- in terms of daily visitors. Then comes the Content followed by the Friends and looks. Most of do social networking to attract traffic to their website(s) and as such the Content and Popularity of the site are important. btw, the list doesn't have digg or netscape or del.is.us which are the top social media sites.
Re: Eng Lit Academic Site Up For Review - Hi Yinka, Thank you for your input. I think you're right about content being more important than graphic design. "Content is king" as they say.
The best way to spin 1 article in 5 - What do you suggest to spin 1 article in 5 articles beside asking writer to rewrite it 5 times which can be quite costly for 1 article. I have tried Content Composer and it is quite difficult for me to use as I still need to write multiple phrases and words.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - You nailed it GT. It's simply another tool to measure how you are progressing in your traffic generation efforts. Also, I already started that thread on "Online Content Syndication". My first post was rather lengthy in an attempt to explain the concept to people who may not be familiar with it.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Five Daily Marketing Habits to Increase Sales

Sales Courage and Resilience

Do You Pretend To Listen To People?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.