Cameron Olthuis

Ok, so you’ve spent a lot of effort building a web site and even more effort getting people to come to your site. Now what? Because none of this matters if you can’t actually get these people to use your product.

You only get one chance with a potential user you so you better make it count. If they don’t immediately have interest in your brand and what you’re selling then you’ve lost your chance. It’s like fishing, once the fish nibbles on your bait you have to set the hook before you catch it. If you wait to long the fish will move on.

In a recent post, Most Home Pages Really Do Suck, I mentioned that the first thing your homepage must tell me is; “who you are, what your site does, and how I use it.” This is like the nibble, and the set is actually keeping them around after you’ve told them what you’re about.

So once you get a potential user to “nibble on your bait” how do you set the hook? You need to effectively sell the potential user on your service, because if you don’t your competition will. You always need to be one step ahead of your competition, don’t play catch up.

Here’s 5 6 things that will help you keep visitors coming back again and again.

1) Content - Content means everything. But having content alone isn’t enough. You need to have content that’s fresh, unique, and updated often. Update it often so that your users have a reason to return. Think about it, you wouldn’t read the newspaper everyday if the content was always the same.

Content doesn’t always mean text. If you run an ecommerce site then your content is the products you sell. Keep this fresh by continually updating featured products or items on sale.

Maybe you don’t have an informational site or an ecommerce site, in this case your marketing message better sell me on why I should use you instead your competitor. If I already use your competitor and I’m happy then your job is going to be 10 times harder, nearly impossible. This brings me to #2…

2) Marketing Message - This goes pretty much hand in hand with telling me “who you are, what your site does, and how I use it”, but it needs to go one step futher by convincing me to stick around. Your brands marketing message is pretty much the same thing as your sales pitch, and you only get one chance, make it count. Sometimes your content alone will give the right message, other times there needs to be more.

Show me what sets you apart from your competition and why my life will be better if I use/buy your product. Remember, Telling isn’t showing.

I came across 30secondrule (no affiliation of my own) tonight, a web design firm who’s whole business is based around designing web sites with effective marketing messages. They obviously understand the point I’m trying to get across, just look at their slogan.

If we can’t get your point across in 30 seconds shame on us!

3) Navigation - When someone first comes to your site they want to know where to go and how to get there as easily as possible. They also want to know why they’re going there in the first place. Are they buying a product, reading articles, using a service? Set your navigation up so it’s convincing, it should also be clear where they’re going and why.

I know this seems like a simple step but it’s often overlooked.

Also make sure that your about and contact pages are easily accessible, this builds trust.

4) Design - A poorly designed site is a huge turnoff. A well designed site is a turn on, it’s professional, trusting, and appealing. It also needs to be designed based on your brand, a web 2.0 site shouldn’t look similar to an ecommerce site.

Your web design pretty much fits into every step of setting the hook. All of these steps should play a role in how your site is designed.

Pay special attention to the layout, colors, logos, font sizes, and images.

5) Trust - Trust is the most important of all. If people don’t trust your brand they won’t do business with you. What kind of message does you brand send? Is it trusting? Earning trust is hard, so put a lot of effort into this.

Make sure every one of these steps outlined are trusting; the design, message, content, and navigation.

6) Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How - These aren’t only things you should think about when building your brand, they also need to be very clear to the users who come across your site.

Who - Who is your site for? Who are you?
Why - Why is it useful? Why is it better than your competition? Why should I use it?
How - How is it used?
What - What is your brand? What is your brand about?
When - When should it be used? When was your brand created?
Where - Where to go next?

I know this all seems like common sense, but you’d be suprised how many of these rules are broken or never thought of.