Website Design and Promotion

Move Your Website Visitors Forward

Gerry McGovern writes on the purpose of websites over at Marketing Profs: Daily Fix blog. He explains how the purpose of web navigation is to keep people moving forward. He points out that it should not be focused on where the visitor has been or could have gone.

He uses a driving analogy to explain his point:

Let's say you're out driving. You come to a junction where you are offered a choice between heading to New York or Boston. You take the road to New York. That's a decision you have made. Would you find it useful to be constantly reminded that you can still turn around and head to Boston? Would it be helpful to be reminded of all the places you've passed as you head to New York?

Your job is to understand the primary direction your most important customers are heading, and to remove obstacles in the way of them arriving at that destination.

These points are crucial for the success of your website and yet so many people still are just not getting it. So take a look at your site, reduce the clutter and confusion, and lead your visitors along the path towards the action you want them to take. It's really quite simple. Don't make it complicated.

Made any Mistakes with Your Web Site Lately?

Many people think that all you have to do is get your web site up and running and it will take care of itself. As many of you know, this is not the case. Once your web site is up, you must promote it. This takes time, energy and patience. And--I know some of you are not going to like this--it never ends.

Successful marketing and promotion of your web site is an ongoing process of trial and error, testing and re-testing to see what works and what doesn't work, and making changes accordingly. This involves making mistakes and learning from those mistakes.

Nobody says it better than Seth. In his post, Trial and Error, he states:

Error occurs whether you want it to or not. Error is difficult to avoid. It's not clear that research or preparation have an enormous impact on error, especially marketing error. Error is clearly not in short supply.

Trial, on the other hand, is quite scarce, especially in some organizations. People mistakenly believe that one way to successfully avoid error is to avoid trial.

We need more trial.

So get out there and make some mistakes. Your success depends upon it!

More on Domain Names

No, not moron domain names... ;)

For those who find statistics interesting (okay, I do), check out Dennis Forbes' post on The Search for a Domain Name.

He's studied stats for registered .com domain names and discovered that all 2- and 3- letter combinations are taken as are nearly 80% of all 4-letter combos. And, the 5-letter ones are starting to fill up. So, don't expect to miraculously find a very short acronym type domain name, at least not of the .com variety.  You might get lucky with a 4-5 letter one.

Mostly it's just a fun read and might give you some good trivia to share with your friends. For example, did you know that the most common beginning letter for domain names is... S?

Okay, maybe this guy has too much time on his hands! :)

Web Copy for Socially Conscious Businesses

SRB Marketing has some good tips on copywriting for socially responsible businesses in their post, Write Copy Like You Mean It (And Hopefully You Do). From their post:

Include your products environmental or social benefits, but try to stay away from industry jargon or anything that is too far out of the mainstream to be understood; avoid exaggerated and overused clichés like “save the world” (chances are your product doesn’t actually do that); and let your own personality come through to the reader. Chances are if you care about what you are selling, then your copy will show that too.

All copy must use simple, but compelling language that can be easily read and understood. You can't expect people to even read beyond the first few words of your site, let alone buy your product or service, if the copy doesn't engage and hold their attention.

If you are stuck with how to "write copy like you mean it," you can also check out the interview with Seth Godin, How To Tell A Great Story, which  SRB refers to.