Website Content That Gets Your Visitors to Act

Turn Your Website into a Marketing Animal – with Great Content – for Online Marketing Success

Nashville online marketing Whether you have an e-commerce site or a "marketing" website that doesn't sell stuff directly via credit cards (B2C or B2B), you are ALWAYS selling. The whole point of websites is to create actions that lead to sales – whether those are direct e-commerce purchases or finding new prospects who may buy eventually from you. Yes, you've got to get traffic to your website, too, but, really, it all really starts with your content.

Get your visitors' ATTENTION! Fulfill a need or "want." Talk to a major pain point. Solve a problem. Make their lives easier or more enjoyable. Create a relationship with them. Make an offer they can't refuse. Or at least intrigue them or entice them with something of value (other info is good!). Give them a reason to choose you versus competitors. Tell your story clearly. Be honest. Do not just blab about you and what you do. Do not be boring. And do not be shy online – instead roar! Otherwise visitors will click out of your site in a hurry…and go elsewhere online to find what they need. 90%+ of the time, they are not looking specifically for you; they are looking for ways how a company like yours can help them.

YourWORDS are critical!

Successful online marketing starts with the words that you have on your site. End of story. Without the words, the rest of your site just won't work nearly as well, and it won't matter how "cool" your site looks or not. Words evoke visions, emotions, thought, and connections – and are key to every website. Also those words are critical for search engines.

Good copy online is also good copy offline – and vice versa. As one of my mentors, Perry Marshall and others have said, "The common thread of great web marketing is great copy writing." Great copy is great content. Unquestionably though, images, videos or audio clips that show and tell your story can be highly effective content components, too. Still, your words are prerequisites (also in multi-media formats).

Your Website Needs "Hooks" to Create Actions

Website content "hooks" generate tangible interactions with your visitors so that you are both exchanging something of real value. In the case of an e-commerce site, your visitors purchase a product or service typically with a credit card – and then you get the money (and other information collected from the buyer – which is also immensely valuable). Products and services and can be purchased online are one type of hook (AKA "conversion").

But you do NOT need to be an e-commerce player to be highly successful – marketing online. That's one of the many myths about SEO (AKA…SEM) that still lingers. The minimum is OK for non e-commerce companies online, just look good decent, have some mediocre information about your company and you're good to go. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What every website needs is a content hook…or preferably multiple hooks…so that (at least some of) your visitors are willing to trade a basic level of contact information (minimally, e.g. name and email address and maybe phone #, etc) for something helpful and/or of value that you give them Here are examples of just a few (typically free) online content hooks that you can consider to create actions that will bring you more business via your website:

Newsletter subscription
Subscription software demo, or other product trial for X period of time – or even an actual
product or service (such as an initial giveaway)
White paper on an important, relevant, timely topic
Audio/video piece about a topic of current interest
Library of valuable, proprietary information (for "members")
"Checklist" or guideline that details some valuable "hints" (e.g. part of your business approach & approach related to client needs (without giving away trade secrets)
Short analysis/audit/assessment of a part of your visitor's business (relative to your offerings)
Appointment for a demo or sales presentation or webinar online or offline
Q & A for visitors to ask your experts questions, ideally real time (online and/or phone)
Custom quote or application (usually via online form) for a custom service or product
…and dozens of others…

With an initial, online "engagement" point, you're adding to your prospect list/sales funnel and have a shot at communicating with them again via email and/or phone – especially if you have great website content. BTW, with some businesses, a guarantee (via a local and/or toll-free phone number) that a knowledgeable human will actually answer/respond to your phone call can be a powerful action step that you can encourage via your site. That being said, one of the most naive things that some businesses assume is: if website visitors are really interested, they will just call us or send an email. Wrong! And if you are fortunate enough to capture some contact information, rapid, professional follow-up with these prospects is critical too.

Your Website Content also Impacts Who Can Find Your Website – Big Time

If you have great website content and content hooks, you still need to drive as much quality traffic to your site as you possibly can – the more of the right kinds of audiences who might be interested in your offerings and who click into your site…the better. Even with an outstanding website, you'll only get a small percentage of visitors actually "convert" or take an action(s). And so you have to play that numbers game. In turn, your website traffic depends on the number and quality of "locations" your pages can be found online. The words that you have on your website also have a big impact on how visible your site is online and how much traffic you'll get. Websites are NOT "Fields of Dreams" ("build it and they will come…") marketing things – unless you want to take the time, effort and money to work on making yours visible online for the right folks.

Ranseen Marketing specializes in writing website copy/recommending other content that will get the attention of the right visitors – and then getting a reasonable percentage to take an action – as well as interweaving that content with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to enable the right types of visitors to find your site. Is online marketing online a good avenue for you to grow your business? Take a quick survey and find out. Read more about our Services. If you have any questions, please contact Tom Ranseen by email or phone: 615-661-6042.