How effective is your website? Does it attract a profitable stream of paying customers? Or does it leave your visitors lost, confused, and uninspired?
Your website can be your most powerful sales tool. When you fill your web pages with powerful and strategic words that spark action and boost ROI, you transform your website into a powerful sales engine. It can fill your pipeline with qualified prospects who are ready to buy.
But most business websites aren’t effective—is yours one of them?
If you’re not regularly getting new leads from your website, your copy could be to blame. But how can you tell whether your site is losing you business with limp, lifeless words and unfocused strategy?
You have to put it to the test.
Conduct a User Test
Show your website to an outsider that does not know what your company does, and is intelligent and forthcoming enough to answer your questions clearly and without bias.
Start with navigation. Copy cannot be effective in a vacuum; it needs proper framing, and your copywriter needs to be able to critique this. For website copy, actionable framing includes elements of user flow, such as intuitive navigation and layout. Show your guinea pig the site for five seconds. In terms of engaging her focus, that’s double the time your brain automatically allots. Now ask her what she remembers, and how she feels. Is she excited and curious, or bored and disengaged? Why?
Next, dive into the content itself. Can she relate, or do your opening lines leave her in the cold? Does she understand not only what your company does, but how? Does she clearly get your value, and know what sets your brand apart?
Finally, the grand prize. Ask her to imagine she were in the target market. Tell her what that is, if she’s not clear. Would she feel compelled to act? Why, or why not?
Selling to Humans? Then Write for Humans
Some so-called “conversion specialists” will tell you that design, color, and small details—like where to position a sign up box—have the biggest effect on conversions.
Don’t get us wrong, these small tweaks can yield returns. But before you start running A/B tests, you need to know that your copy—the backbone of your site—works for the human reading it.
The words on your site drive people to take action and buy, not the color of your sign up button. When your copy speaks to real people and inspires a human response, you can sit back and let your website do the sales work for you—reeling your visitors in and converting them into customers.
For more tips on transforming your website with sharply written copy that enchants, enraptures, and brings in new business, sign up here.
