Half the visitors to a typical website
see the Home page only and disappear
somewhere else in less than a minute.
Few websites average more than 5
pageviews per visitor.
This is the result of the way most of us
use the web - to browse for the
information we want at that moment in
time. Given the cost and effort spent by
the website owner to acquire those
visitors at all, any method of retaining
them and persuading them to useful
action must be a priority.
A visitor who has a quick look and
disappears must still be a better
prospect than one who never finds you at
all. After all they must have found your
site by following a link or obtaining
your web address offline. So they
already know in broad terms what they
expect to find.
Research has shown the typical buying
pattern to involve some 7 site visits
before a purchase is actually made. So
it is very important to capture the
potential customer as early as possible
in the buying cycle and persuade them to
come back to your site rather than the
competitors’.
What should we expect the Home page to
achieve in less than 30 seconds?
1. State clearly the target audience
2. Explain the benefits offered to them
3. Prove you are a credible supplier
4. Show all information required can be
easily found
5. Collect an email address
Design is just as important as the text
here because there is only time to give
the right impression. The words will be
few and carefully selected for
significant keywords.
The biggest danger is to try and do too
much.
The 5th objective of collecting an email
address is now back in fashion. Email
subscriptions have been hit by spam and
many people are now reluctant to
subscribe. Yet a newsletter is likely to
be the only way that your site may be
remembered in a month’s time. You are
still more likely to persuade someone to
sign up for a newsletter than to
bookmark your site in their own browser.
Your most precious tool is the one that
persuades the visitor to sign up.
Without it, the visitor – and you – will
have to start the whole process from
scratch the next time they want to look
for your product or service.
Oh
dear! Now I’ll add the redesign of my
Home page to my own TO DO list.
Talk to you next month!
Stephen Orr
Web 4 Marketing (UK) Ltd, 16 The Vineyard,
Richmond, Surrey TW10 6AN - Tel: 020 8948 1022
