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Three Things Every Website Should Do
By Alan Rigg

When I started my company in 2002, I knew I needed to have a website. Why? To provide credibility! How can a company be "real" in this day and age if it doesn't have a website? So, like many companies, I published an informational website that explained "here's who we are, and here's what we do".

Did the website provide credibility? I guess so, because I was successful in securing new customers. However, what the website didn't do became glaringly obvious over time. It didn't generate any sales leads, and it didn't sell many books, ebooks, or CDs.

Being a busy businessman, I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about my website. I certainly didn't think of it as a strategic weapon in my company's marketing arsenal. That started to change in the spring of 2004 when I received an e-mail from a fellow member of the National Speaker's Association. 

The e-mail contained a copy of a newsletter that was published by yet another member of the National Speaker's Association. The subject of the newsletter article was something called "internet marketing".

The article caught my fancy, so I subscribed to the author's newsletter. Over the next month or two I picked up an eBook and a CD that were recommended in their newsletter articles. The concept of internet marketing was really starting to intrigue me, so I decided to do some serious research.

During the next four months I invested several thousand dollars in eBooks, CDs, and online training courses that dealt with various aspects of internet marketing. I also invested a couple hundred hours in reading, researching, and completing online and in-person training courses. 

This education led me to the conclusion that I was missing out big-time with my company's website. In fact, I concluded that just about every corporate website would be vastly improved if it was re-designed to do three very important things.

What are the three things that every website should do?

1. Help visitors RAPIDLY answer two questions:

• "What does this company do?", and

   

• "Is there anything here for ME?"

2. Encourage visitors to opt-in to receive free information resources.

This keeps visits to websites from being one-shot deals. If you offer visitors the opportunity to opt-in to receive free, value-added information, and you provide truly useful information to them on a consistent and regular basis, you can earn their trust and build relationships that make it much more likely that they will buy from you over time.

NOTE: It is critical that you avoid overwhelming your subscribers with sales pitches. Yes, your goal is to make sales; otherwise, why invest the time and effort required to produce and publish value-added information? However, if your subscribers feel your publications offer little more than sales pitches, they won't remain subscribers for long.

3. Motivate Action

Informational websites do a great job of informing. But, wouldn't you like your website to also drive online sales and/or generate sales leads? To achieve these goals, your website copy needs to be written much differently than what you see on most websites.

If a website page is going to motivate a reader to take action, the focus needs to change from you, your company and your offerings to your visitors and their problems.

Direct marketers often refer to the "radio station" WIIFM (What's In It For ME?). If you want to motivate a website visitor to take action, you have to communicate with them in "WIIFM" language.

Web pages that motivate action are not distant and aloof (like most "corporate" website pages). Rather, reading them feels like a one-on-one conversation between the reader and you. The copy should invoke the reader's emotions (a key driver in making purchasing decisions). 

Plus, the copy should provide enough supporting details to enable the reader to feel comfortable that making an online purchase or contacting your company for more information would be a good idea.

This very specialized form of copywriting has a name: it's called "sales letter" copywriting. You have probably received sales letters in the mail, or seen a similar form of advertising in infomercials on TV. Some sales letters and infomercials can sound pretty "cheesy"; yet, for decades sales letters have repeatedly proven to be one of the most productive forms of direct marketing.

The biggest criticism you'll hear about sales letters (usually from corporate website designers) is, "This copy is MUCH too long! Nobody's going to take the time to read that much information!"

You know what? The critics are ALMOST right. Probably 95% of readers will NOT read any given sales letter in its entirety. That's OK, because sales letters are NOT written to appeal to EVERYONE! They are written to appeal to the specific individuals who have the specific problems that the sales letter addresses!

Most people will skim a sales letter...IF it has a compelling headline or sub-headline that catches their attention. They may read a paragraph or glance at a few bullets. If the paragraph or bullets are compelling, they may read another paragraph. 

Once they have read several compelling paragraphs, they may decide to go back and read the sales letter from the beginning. At that point it is much more likely the reader will take the action that the sales letter recommends, whether that is making an online purchase or contacting the company for more information.

The Results

We began publishing pieces of our revised website in mid-November and driving traffic to them via Google Adwords. (Google Adwords is a form of pay-per-click advertising, which I won't address in this article. If you would like more information, open a Google search page and click on the "Advertising Programs" link near the bottom of the page.) 

We finally published the primary website just before Christmas. This website acts as a gateway to individual sales letters that describe each of our services.

During the past six weeks, our revised website and pay-per-click advertising campaigns have produced 76 eBook sales and attracted more than 1,200 subscribers to our free newsletters and mini-courses. We have acquired one new customer for sales assessments, one new consulting client, and several other leads that are in various stages of being pursued. 

We have enjoyed these results despite the fact that many of our sales letter pages that include a "Contact Us" call to action have only been available for two weeks...and those two weeks included the Christmas and New Year's holidays! In my opinion, that's a pretty good start!

Conclusion

What is the focus of your company's website? What was it designed to accomplish? Are you trying to earn credibility? Do you want to educate your visitors? Or, would you also like to make online sales and/or generate new sales leads for your business?

If you want your website to generate online sales and/or sales leads, it needs to do three things: 1) help visitors rapidly figure out what your company does and whether you can do anything for them; 2) encourage visitors to opt-in to receive regular, value-added communications (so that you can build relationships and earn trust); and 3) motivate action.

To motivate action, convert most of your website's pages to sales letters. Make sure every sales letter includes a "call to action", which can be making a purchase or contacting your company. Change the focus of your website from you, your company, and your offerings to your visitors and their problems. Tune in to the radio station WIIFM, and watch the online sales and leads roll in!

Copyright 2005 -- Alan Rigg

PERMISSIONS TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in its entirety free of charge, electronically or in print, provided it appears with the included copyright and author’s resource box with live website link.

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