What is your website for? Here’s a quick quiz for you. Is it:
A) To convince: so that visitors are persuaded that you are as good as you say you are?
B) To engage: so that you build a relationship with them?
Many business websites are written as if they are sales proposals. Their primary purpose is to tell people why this particular company is so amazingly, brilliantly, world-leadingly great. But if you really want results from your site – if you want to pull in a regular stream of good, inbound leads – then you need to do more than just pitch.
Remember: not all visitors to your website will be ready to buy straight away. The majority will be much earlier in the sales process – researching and scouting for information for when the time is right. Buying is hard, and they are crying out for your assistance. Create content that helps them to solve their challenges, inspires them, educates them, even entertains them – and the chances are they will remember YOU when the time comes to buy.
A good business website doesn’t just ‘sell’. It engages visitors, pulling them in, answering their questions and building their trust. Yes you need details on your company and its products and services, like you would in a sales proposal or a brochure. But you also need information that hits home with those who are just browsing. If you want success from your site, make sure the content caters for visitors at each stage of buying process – from early stage research to just about to buy.
So don’t just pitch – make your website valuable. Turn it into a veritable hub of information and resources that visitors can delve into and learn from – more library than proposal or brochure. You’ll get much better results that way.
Other content you might like:
- 10 valuable tips for a website that gets results
- How to create a lead generating, high performance website <- great post by Sean McVey
- Stop it with the self-promotion; put your customers first
I’d add “to educate”. 🙂
That’s really important too Nenad. Thanks for the addition.
Agree with you Sonja. Copyblogger is a very good example of this. They have built a website where you can find almost every piece of information which you need for copywriting and blogging and I think that other bloggers can also use this example and provide content which solves the problems of their readers.
Too many sales pitches are one of the reason why I unsubscribe from a blog/website and I feel others also do the same
I agree Hamza – we love Copyblogger here at VC (www.copyblogger.com for those who don’t know the site). There is no speedier way to make me unsubscribe than a wrongly-timed sales pitch. Pop up ads go in Room 101 for me too. Thanks for the comment. Good to connect on Twitter too.