Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [85]
Figure 7-23: At-A-Glance’s checkout page
Review and Hands-On
First, review your customer research, and compare it with the lists of words and phrases from your keyword research. Include salespeople and customer service managers in this exercise because they have direct interaction with your customers. If you are “wearing all the hats,” then talk to others about your business and seek their perceptions of what you offer. Either way, find what people think of you and how that matches up with how you think of your business.
Second, review the content in your marketing and on your website. Are you building rapport with the searcher by showing your concern with their needs and their searches? Is your content too focused on what you want from them?
Think about what need you are creating beyond the initial need. What do you offer that is different or unique in your market? How do you support, educate, or develop your customers to provide an additional benefit beyond what they purchased?
Answer this question from the visitor’s perspective: “What’s in it for me?” List the typical objections to your business. Is it price, commitment, terms, or complexity? How can you make the objection a benefit in as few words as possible?
Review your calls to action (or commitment). Are there other options, instructions, or conflicting information that prevent a clear call to the highest profitable action? Are all your calls to action the same size or the same color, resulting in an unclear priority?
Review your commitment process. Is the process clear of obstruction? Is the path clear, or does it require visitors to ignore information, search for the next step, or sift through constant visual interruptions? Conducting this review may require someone outside your business or organization to fully review with an honest evaluation. Sometimes being too close to the process creates blindness to obvious issues.
Part III: Month 2: Develop Content That Converts
Getting people to your website is one thing, getting people to do what you want is another. Great rankings can get you visibility and visitors, but people are looking for information beyond a price tag. They need to be persuaded to take action, and when you only have seconds to make a good impression, it is your content, and the presentation of that content that will keep people on your website.
Chapter 8: Week 5: Understand That Content Comes First
Chapter 9: Week 6: Connect Your Content to Users and Search Engines
Chapter 10: Week 7: Master the Science of Online Persuasion
Chapter 11: Week 8: Improve Conversions
Chapter 8
Week 5: Understand That Content Comes First
All of the hard work you put into optimization and rankings won’t mean much if your content does not connect to the reader, provide compelling and persuasive reasons to work with you or your company, or offer creative ways to display and communicate that content. It is one thing to get people to the website, but it is another to get them to do what you want them to do, and that is based on the amount of attention and work you put into your content. Content is an investment. It is not something you simply copy and paste from a brochure or from an old website. Content is a way to actively engage the reader, lead them through a process, and then bring them to a decision point.
Chapter Contents
Monday: Make your content explode
Tuesday: Create a customer experience
Wednesday: Tell your story
Thursday: Provide a return on the customer’s investment
Friday: Test your message
Monday: Make Your Content Explode
We as marketers need to learn and utilize the emotional connections to words that our readers need in order to be properly persuaded.