Most websites exist to sell something in one form or another. OK, so you might not be selling something directly from your site via shopping software. But if you run any form of a commercial website, then you are trying to sell goods or services to the visitors that come to your site, and telling them what you do is not going to gain you the maximum return on investment of your website. You must sell your services or goods, not tell people about them.
The job of a website is to give the visitor (prospective customer) all the information they need to make that buying decision. The simple phrase is educated, inform, motivate.
There is a well know acronym of AIDA
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action
These are the four stages everyone goes through before they buy. If your web copy is not doing this and you are missing calls to action, then you are losing money. Lack of a call to action is one of the most common errors on a page. ‘Click here for FREE information’ is a simple instruction that will get people taking the action you want.
So how about educating and motivating? How do you get the interest and desire? A simple re-write of your site can have a dramatic effect on its success and it can pay for itself in no time at all. So what is the difference between selling and telling?
Product descriptions:
Available in black
In stock
Next day delivery
Available in jet black, allowing you to wear this beautiful necklace with almost every outfit you own. This can be delivered to your door overnight if the order is placed before 3 pm, and the item is: in stock
It is plain to see which of the above tells and which sells!
The plain fact is that, as a web marketer, it is your job to sell yourself, your products, and services, and you need to understand the difference. If you don’t, then your orders/inquiries are going to someone else.
