In 15 seconds, a visitor to your site determines whether
or not they are interested in your product or service.
Web usability experts can provide all sorts of design
insights, HTML advice and search engine optimization
tips to increase your site visibility and appeal.
While this is helpful, the most crucial factor in
the sale is how you connect with your visitor. That
connection occurs in one way – through content.
Research from academia, web consultants, and behavioral
scientists over the past two decades has revealed ten
techniques to sharpen your web-writing skills and tighten
your customer connection.
The First Four Seconds
Visitors to your website want the gist
of your site, services and products within 4 seconds.
That’s enough time for you to have read this paragraph
aloud.
On your homepage, you have 1–2 sentences, no more
than 30 words, to get this information across. Don’t
waste that time. Include specific points of differentiation
that are important to your target audience in those 30
words – “free shipping” or “24-hour
service” and so forth. If you can have someone
not associated with your business read those 1-2 sentences
aloud in four seconds, and then be able to tell you what
makes your service or product different, you’ve
hit the right mark.
Say Yes to What They Want
Now that your visitor understands what
you are and has an idea of your products and services,
think about what they want to see to pick your company
over a competitor. People buy to satisfy emotions, soothe
anxieties or gratify desires, so the want is important – it’s
their justification to buy. Put yourself in your target
audience’s shoes – imagine what they want
to see on a site to make them say, “Aha – this
is the one.” Is it “free shipping” or
is it “guaranteed overnight delivery”?
For instance, if you are a flower shop that guarantees
overnight delivery, think about the emotional reasons
why your service might be important to a potential customer.
Perhaps they’ve just had an argument with their
significant other or a family member over the phone.
Then, target your content at that reason. You could lead
into your special overnight delivery service with “Need
to apologize…? Tomorrow is not too late with fresh
flowers. We guarantee overnight delivery anywhere in
the continental US.”
Clarity of the Connection
Use short, 8-12 word sentences. Paragraphs
should be 1-3 sentences long and contain only one idea
or concept. The key is quick comprehension.
There are two ways to measure how well you do this,
a subjective method and a statistical method. Personally,
I try to combine the two.
First, I write (or copy and paste) my content in Microsoft
Word and run the spell/grammar check with readability
statistics turned on (under Options and then Grammar).
This will provide you a “grade-level” score.
If your score is within the 10.00 to 11.99 range, you’ve
passed the statistical test. Anything below 8 and you
risk treating your visitors like simpletons. Scores above
13 are typical of three things: academic treatises, scientific
papers, and engineering analyses. Even if that’s
what you offer, those are end products, not content written
to connect with a person’s wants.
The subjective method for readability is to provide
the content to someone who knows very little about the
matter at hand and ask them to read it and then tell
you the gist of it. If they can, you’ve written
the content clear enough for it to be understood by the
average visitor.
Jargon and Buzzwords
Your time with your potential customer
is limited. Really think through if you want your website
to have words like “paradigm,” “synergy,” “repurposeable,” “value-added,” “best
of breed,” “game plan” or any other
ambiguous hype. If you think you do, read the short book
Why Business People Speak Like Idiots and then re-examine
your site. Maximum impact equals meaningful words.
Limit Length
For each page of content or product,
place the most important information in your first two
paragraphs or product positions on the page. Then keep
the rest of your webpage content to under three printed
pages’ worth.
This can be hard to do with the banner, the navigation
bar, the copyright notice, pictures, and so on. One approach
is to create a “print page” hyperlink that
pulls up a content only version of the page (with thumbnail
pictures for specific products). Put these print pages
in a sub-directory on your website to make it easier
for yourself to separate the print pages from the full
display pages.
An F-Shaped Pattern
Write your content so that the
shape (of the paragraphs, sentences and lists as you
look at them together) is easy to skim. After deciding
on the gist of your site and its products or services
during the first four seconds of their visit, a visitor
spends 11 seconds or less scanning your page in an F-shaped
pattern: first, across the top portion of your content;
then down and across again – but this time, less
than ¾ of the way across; and finally down the
left-side looking for something of interest in the first
two or three words of each line.
Key Words and Bullets
Because of this F-shaped pattern,
any text beyond the first two short paragraphs needs
to have its key words in the first two or three words
of each sentence or list item. The trick is to imagine
writing a three-word headline – then lengthen it
at the end. For instance, “Overnight Delivery – Guaranteed
or Your Money Back” is better than “We provide
an overnight delivery guarantee.”
Lists flow naturally into this
F-shaped pattern. Bullet point lists are easily skimmed
and web visitors tend
to return to easily-skimmed sites 47% more. If you’re
selling over the web that can quickly convert to 47%
more sales.
Your lists should only have three to four items in them.
If you have a lot of items, then segregate them into
three to four categories. If a list has more than eight
bulleted items, you risk the visitor simply hopping and
skipping over the list.
Show Your Pricing
A common gap for business-to-business
websites is the lack of pricing details. This information
is crucial to the financial decision-maker in every potential
customer. Even if you cannot give an exact price, then
show respect for your prospective customer and at least
discuss price levels. When I was CIO of Chrysalis Technologies,
many companies wanted to meet one, two or even three times
before discussing pricing basics. In five years, not one
of those companies made a sale with us; we were simply
too busy and moved on to a competitor who would at least
provide us a ballpark cost up front.
This may seem to fly in the face of advice you’ve
seen elsewhere, but think about it: if I want to buy something,
then one of my next deciding factors is if I can afford
that something at your site. If your price range is within
the one I’ve established – either in an approved
budget or in my mind – then how likely am I to buy
now and move on to the rest of my day?
Unless you have a truly, globally unique product or service,
you need to provide pricing as an essential part of the
customer connection.
Ask for the Sale
Too many websites show the product
or the service, let the visitor know the benefits, and
then leave the visitor to ponder what to do next. This
should be the easy part. Include a call to action with
a “buy now” button or a phrase like “call
now so your feelings arrive with your flowers.” If
your visitor has to pause to reflect, you can lose that
thread of connection, what’s been called the “succession
of yeses.” For some potential customers, that pause
is all they need to remember to comparison shop and move
on.
Take the Five-One-Five Test
Once you believe your content is ready,
print out five of your web pages (your home page plus four
more) and show them to five people in the market(s) you
are targeting. Give them one minute. Do they “get
it”? Do they understand what you are selling? Can
they tell you what stands out as a key differentiator of
your service or products? Take in their feedback and revise
your content.
Following these ten tips will provide you the best chance
of connecting with your customer and getting the sale. Whether
you’re providing business or consumer services or
products, visitors to your website want a commitment within
15 seconds.
The question is, do you?
About This Author
John Avellanet is the managing director & principal
consultant of Cerulean Associates LLC, a Virginia-based
IT management & compliance consultancy focused on helping
clients improve their financial results by aligning IT and
compliance with business strategies and new product development.
Cerulean Associates LLC is located at http://www.ceruleanllc.com on the web.
