You have 3 seconds to grab them. Most visitors to your site have no idea who you are. They know next to nothing about your product. You're playing "beat the clock."
So what are you going to do in those critical 3 seconds? Don't even think about giving your mission statement, a president's message, or anything resembling "corporate-speak." They'll be gone with a quick click of their back button.
What's In It For Me?
Answer these questions in the first 3 seconds or lose your site visitors forever:
- What product, service or information is this site offering?
- Will it solve a problem of mine or provide a benefit I don't now enjoy?
Web Myths Dispelled
Let's get a few things straight before we can move on. First of all, let's not kid ourselves into thinking users view your site the way you do. When I first began building sites, I imagined my site visitors exploring my site, enraptured as they clicked from one page to the next. Forget that. Few people "surf" the Web anymore.
People come to the Web for three basic reasons:
- To solve a problem
- To learn something
- To be entertained
They're listed in order of importance to your site's present and future success. If you don't solve your visitor's problem or provide a benefit, you failed. Even if you informed your visitors or made them laugh, you failed.
Why? Because people pay for solutions to problems. Dorothy, the tin man, and the cowardly lion only endured the dangers of the yellow brick road for one reason. They had problems. So do your site visitors. It's why they came to your site in the first place.
Web conversion is the process of showing how your product or service makes your site visitor's life better. Unless you use one of these motives, you're fighting an uphill battle:
Winning Headlines
Benefits are those statements which address your visitors' needs, greeds, or reduces their fear of loss. When you describe your product or service, you describe its features. Features don't compel to act. Benefits do.
Features tell about a product or service. Benefits tell why you should care. Features appeal to the mind. Benefits satisfy the emotions.
For every one of us who thinks they buy on facts alone, guess again. Remember just one thing from this article and your time here was well worth your while:
"People buy on emotion and justify the purchase with facts."
-Steve Myers
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People buy what they want, not necessarily what they need. If people only bought what they needed, the world's economy would collapse!
People don't buy a Mercedes because of its fine engineering (though they'll tell you that's why). They pay many times more because of the way they feel driving it.
Benefits Demand Attention and Spur Action
Every good headline should address one or more benefits. It's the carnival barker crying out what's in it for you above the noise of the crowd. It gets your attention. "Step right up! Win a prize!"
As you walk through a carnival, you pass by game after game. Most of them never catch your attention. But once in a while, there's one you can't ignore. And chances are, the game and its prizes aren't what pulled you in. It's probably the one that best got your attention.
It's the same with Web sites. Most Web traffic begins with a search in Google, Yahoo, MSN or another search engine. Your site is one of many displayed in the search page. And beyond the 10 results you see displayed on the first page, there may be thousands more pages of additional search results.
You look for the search result that seems like it's most likely to match your needs or wants. And here's the point most site owners miss: when someone clicks on one of the search results, they know they have thousands, if not millions, of other choices. If your site doesn't convey a benefit they want, they are gone in seconds.
The Meaning of Life
To write effective headlines, you've got to answer the "meaning of life" questions about your visitors:
- Where did they come from?
- Why are they here?
- Where do I go from here?
Most of your visitors come from a search engine or another site which linked to yours, as we mentioned above.
You must understand why your audience clicked to your site in the first place. Did they have a need or want your service could provide? Did they want to learn something? Did they expect you to entertain them? Knowing why they're on your site is key to knowing which benefits will strike a chord with them.
Beyond Benefits
OK, so we established that every headline should answer "What's in it for me?" In the last hundred years of advertising, two other aspects of wildly successful ads revealed themselves:
- Arouse Curiosity
- Announce Something
Curiosity
"New Jelly Donut Diet." You might read something like this in line at the supermarket. And you can bet that the National Enquirer has had some practice at getting attention with headlines.
This headline doesn't focus on conveying a benefit. It arouses your curiosity. It sucks you in. It makes you want to know.
Some of the most effective headlines combine benefits and curiosity. Let's continue with our silly example to make the point. Change the headline above to "Eat Jelly Donuts and Lose 2.3 Pounds a Day". Now we have used both curiosity (How to lose weight eating jelly donuts) and a benefit (Lose 2.3 Pounds a Day).
Another critical thing to note is that by using a specific number, the headline becomes more believable. By using "2.3 Pounds" it sounds like the claim is based on testing or scientific data. Two pounds or three pounds sounds more general. Normally, liars aren't that specific.
Announcements
Online or off, the last thing you want is for your sales copy to sound like sales copy. Make it sound like news or an announcement for much better results. When you read a newspaper, you expect to learn something... hopefully something interesting or useful.
Applying the feel of an announcement to our headline above might sound something like, "Announcing New Jelly Donut Diet - Lose 4 Pounds a Day!"
Putting It All Together
OK, most of the time, you won't be able to incorporate a benefit, curiosity, and an announcement into the same headline. At least make sure you include a benefit targeted at your intended audience. When you can work in curiosity or an announcement, you make it even more powerful.
Effective headlines are just one aspect of powerful sales copy. Until you get your audience's attention and convince them to continue to read, you don't get a chance to convey the value of your product or service.
Headlines - The First Step in Making Your Case
An unfortunate fact is that almost all Web sites fall short of their potential. Converting visitors to your Web site into leads or online sales is where the rubber hits the road.
Yet most online marketers limit their efforts to getting Web traffic to your site. They'll sell you on Pay-Per-Click or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Why? Because it's typically all they know. But don't blame them; it's what they're trained in. It's just not the whole picture.
Reduce the Cost Per Action on Your Web Site
Consider Pay-Per-Click (PPC) traffic. You pay for every visitor coming from a PPC campaign like Overture or Google AdWords. It may cost as little as ten cents or as much as several dollars to drop a visitor on your site. But if your site doesn't effectively convert this visit into a lead, purchase or other measurable action, you're simply paying too much to aquire a lead or a new customer.
Double your conversion rate and you cut your cost per lead or advertising cost per sale in half. Better yet, it's a one-time investment which pays rich dividends for months or even years.
How Do I Improve My Conversion Rate?
Before your mechanic can fix your car, he has to know what's isn't working the way it should. The same goes for your Web site. To know what opportunities for conversion improvements, you need to know what isn't working effectively. This is why Online Marketing Advisor offers the Conversion Audit.
Over years of research into conversion factors in online and traditional advertising, direct marketing and other forms of sales copy, Online Marketing Advisor identified 67 specific factors which determine if your site converts or not.
We've tested these in real-world examples to determine their relative effectiveness. We know what works through exhaustive testing. We boiled it down to a predictable science.
How Do I Get Started?
Call our office at (801) 859-5126 to arrange a free site conversion consultation. While I prefer to get to know you by phone, if your schedule doesn't permit, just send me a quick email at seomarketer@gmail.com and I'll get back with you right away. |
