On a scale of 1 to 10, how frustrating is it to spend your time and efforts on a potential customer merely to have him (or her) walk away without buying?

Keep your answer in mind as you read my second question slowly:

Do you feel the same way if someone visits your site and leaves without buying?

With a business world that focuses on numbers, you would think that more concentration is placed on converting website visitors into online sales.  However, the truth rests with the unfortunate fact that there are very few companies that place the needed emphasis on their website content and (consequently) driving a successful traffic conversion campaign.  So, for those of you who want better content for your company and to accelerate past competitors with conversions, here are three outstanding content tips to get you started:

The 3 P’s of Web Content — Perspective, Perspective, Perspective

Successful sales professionals have learned to adapt their approach to focus solely on the impact their product/service will have on the client.  The same mindset and goals need to be upheld with the creation of web content.  The content reader and the face-to-face client have this in common: they care about what they will get out of their relationship with the company.  With that said, keep these tips in mind:

  • The Use of “I” — Let’s establish this right now; when you create website content that is not a blog article in relation to your personal life, avoid “I” at all costs!  I will repeat the meat and potatoes of that last sentence: avoid “I” at all costs.  Even in those two statements, the sentiment is still not emphasized enough, but think about it as the reader does not want to know about you (sorry to say).  Instead, the reader wants to know about the product benefits and how it will influence their life; from a simple yet glorious gratification of tasty food to a life-altering movement that will forever define a piece of their existence, they are ego-centric and you need to take advantage of that realization.
  • The Use of “You” — Be direct. It is as simple and as complex as that.  Address and engage the reader with the use of “you”, “your”, and other words that directly imply you are talking with that individual.  For those of you new web copy writers out there, this is the biggest and most extraordinary change that you can make either as you make your earth-shattering entrance into the world of website writing as you will see amazing changes in buying behavior from your site visitors.

Dig Your Own Grave With a Strong Sales Pitch

While making the sale is important, the points that collaboratively drown out the notion of the sale are the benefits to the client.  If you learn nothing else from this post, please remember that it is detrimental to your business to push the sale.  Keep your content geared toward benefit and consider the following tips:

  • Aggressive Sales Leads to Lost Sales — An aggressive sales approach with regard to web content has an extremely lopsided risk to reward relationship.  While the reward could possible be a single and immediate sale for your company, you run the extraordinarily high risk of losing that client as well as their friends to your competition.  With that said, even if you make the sale, you could still end up with the short end of the stick because you left that customer with a a bad taste in their mouth instead of beneficial content they can share to help their friends.
  • Control Your Volume — Your job with writing website content is to introduce and gently remind the reader how the product benefit them.  One of the most significant errors people make is to be overly emphatic with the benefits which gives the sensation that you are jumping out of the computer screen at your reader with the product in hand saying, “You cannot live without this so buy it right now or your life will be horrible”.  OK, that was a little over-dramatic, but it delivered the point that you want to control your proverbial volume button.

Knowledge is Power

While keeping the above points in mind, the obvious goal of your website content is to market a product or service.  You want to make the product shine in the minds of the readers and therefore induce further sales.  With that said, there are two significantly important things you need to know and understand prior to the creation of your content:

  • Know Your Product — This may sound a bit rudimentary for you, but take a look around your company to see if someone else knows the product better than you.  Along with this, research what your competition has written about the product.  Overall, you want to get as much information as possible prior to writing the content so that you are well-prepared to write outstanding and complete information for the readers.
  • Know Your Audience — Your readers and website visitors are unique to you and your company.  It is significantly important for you to understand what they want, need, and expect from the products and services that you provide.  Only when you understand all of that information as well as what impact your products and services had on your customers will you have enough information to accurately portray that with your website content.

In summary, website content is one of the most pertinent factors of converting website visitors into customers.  With the tips mentioned above, you can start to maximize the impact of your website with better content today!

*Should you need search engine optimized content for your website or blog management for consistent content please contact us today*

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Sources:
“The Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing”-E-Book
SlideShare.net
Image Source: HubSpot, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing”, E-Marketer.com