You now have your shiny new degree and are prepared to put up your shingle and begin soliciting customers. Still, you can’t deny the importance of a website. Then, you can consider shelling out several hundred pounds for a professional design for your ideal website. The visuals are spectacular, especially the colors. Maybe there’s a relevant photo collage in the header or another excellent flashy effect. For weeks, you and your designer go back and forth, refining the design until it’s perfect.
Oops, you’re going to need some copy, then. You quickly whip something up, have your designer plug it in, and hit the publish button. The next step is to sit tight. Maybe for a very, very long time. I’m not arguing that the quality of your visual identity is unimportant. It’s probably crucial if you’re trying to market a creative service like web design, graphic design, or photography. Still, you need to double-check a few significant things in your material if you want your website to perform at peak efficiency.
WIIFM?
Customers always want to know how they will benefit from a purchase, especially when it comes to intangible goods like coaching. Still and all, you are featured prominently in online and offline advertising. Nobody cares about you. Your client could care less that you got first place in the class if you think it makes you excellent. They probably don’t care about the various professional groups you belong to. They are trying to determine whether or not you can help them with their issue. They are curious about your value proposition.
Be both a carrot and a stick.
Different people find different things to be inspiring. If you tend to gravitate toward the pleasant, it will come over in your writing. However, many people require discomfort as a catalyst for change. Identify the problem your customer is experiencing and explain how you can help and the consequences of not doing so.
Remove the jargon
Jargon and abbreviations are a convenient shorthand for communicating between any two groups. Your customer doesn’t know it, doesn’t care about it, and doesn’t want to be made to feel stupid and condescending because of it. Just use regular, conversational language.
Remove the fat
Rare is the individual who loses sleep over the fear of being untrue to themselves. I’m not saying they aren’t disconnected or that it isn’t making them uncomfortable, but that’s not how they’ll put it. Talk to your potential customer to hear their pain points described in their own words. Keep your website and promotional materials consistent in language use.
Do not waste time writing for print.
People’s reading styles seem to change when looking at a screen, so giving them something to hold on to is essential. Make sure to use a legible font size of at least 12 points in a sans-serif font (without decorative flourishes). Use plenty of white space, spacing out paragraphs instead of indenting, and emphasizing crucial ideas with bold bullets and numbers. Paragraphs should not be more than six lines; if they are, you should reconsider their length.
Get your point across to them.
You should at least hope all website visitors will sign up for your freebie. Put a sign-up form and a pop-up window on every website page. Make sure your email and phone number are prominently displayed on the site. Having a contact form will reduce spam. You shouldn’t use a “click here” link to reveal your email address; fewer and fewer people are still using Outlook, and it’s annoying to be using a web-based email client and find out that you can’t access the address unless you install Outlook. Tell them they should contact you if they’re experiencing any issues you mention on your site.
Don’t put off making a list.
Set up a squeeze page and begin list-building with your free offer, even if you haven’t given much thought to the content of your website.
You’re up!
Check out your site in the mirror and see whether it satisfies the criteria laid out below.
Is your content consistent with your actions?
Look at how often you use “me” and “I” instead of “you”; the latter should be used much more frequently.
Third, ditch the business jargon; it does not impress anyone. Since you are not a member of the British Royal Family, you need not refer to yourself in the plural when referring to yourself in the singular.
Remove all technical terms.
5. The client’s own words describing the issue constitute the rewrite. 6. Include a distinct “call to action.”
Joyce Campbell created the Get More Clients System and
TheGetMoreClientsSystem.com [http://www.TheGetMoreClientsSystem.com]. She assists sole proprietors in the service industry in expanding their clientele, revenue, and audience. You may improve your online visibility by taking her free six-step e-course, which you can receive by visiting her website. She has written a book titled “How to Get Off Your Backside and Live Your Life” and is a certified NLP trainer.
