Your Website Visitors Demand Clarity
Did you ever knock on someone’s door and, when they answer it, say something that makes no sense at all like, “Hello, gas prices are up”? You’ve got the wrong message. The person at the door says goodbye, politely or otherwise. It’s an analogy that works for the Internet as well. Somebody gets to your website and you’ve got the wrong message. You sell widgets but your website starts with an animation page that glorifies your logo. Nobody cares about your logo. You then get to the home page that shows a picture of your brick-and-mortar store. Trust me, unless you are the reincarnation of Frank Lloyd Wright, nobody cares. You’ve got cute little animated widgets that dance across the page in a Javascript frenzy. Nobody cares.
To many, this would be obvious but what about something like a list of the different kinds of widgets you have? What message are you sending out by doing that?:
“We have widgets like everybody else.”
You need a Message approach to set yourself apart from all the other widget websites out there.
You have about six seconds to grab someone with your website message and convince them that this is where they should be. Let’s say your message is all about low cost widgets. Your message could be:
“The Lowest Prices on Widgets Ever Seen!”
Now that’s a message. If you are the Walmart of Widgets then that is the message you should get across and right away.
Too often, people get caught up in the “design” of a website. The design is secondary to the message. If you lose someone after six seconds, it doesn’t matter how good your design is. The design should follow the message. If the message is, “The Lowest Prices on Widgets Ever Seen!” then the design should reflect and support that.
Website visitors don’t care about what you do, they are interested in what’s in it for me. It is so easy to go to the next website and people will in a nanosecond. Take your ego out of the picture and imagine yourself a brand new visitor to your website and you are looking to buy widgets online. Does the home page lead you exactly to where you want to go? Does it present a strong case for you to stay? Maybe you aren’t looking for the lowest price widgets but for very expensive and high quality widgets. Did you get to a link that goes to an empty page or, worse yet, an “Under Construction” page. I shudder to think.
Every click matters. Every navigation is important. The visitor to your site can fall off at any point. When your message permeates every aspect of your site, your website will be like a clear beacon for those who want your product and people will stay. With other things in place, maybe they’ll even buy. More on that in a future article. Until then, I am...
...At Your Service
Paul Rodriguez
President, Natural Rhythm, Inc.