way you can improve your Web site
way you can improve your Web site is to choose titles for navigation links that offer obvious benefits to visitors. Think in terms of direct response marketing. You’d never receive an envelope or catalog in the mail with words like “About us,” “Our Products,” and “Contact.” Instead, every word on the envelope or front cover of a direct-response catalog is designed to offer a benefit and ask for an action.
Accordingly, strive to replace inward-directed links with links that offer benefits. Translate the categories of your Web site into clearly identified “benefit chunks.” For example:
“Products” could be translated into “Resources”
“About us” could be translated into “Experience”
“Contact us” could be translated into “Register to win” or “Free valuable report!”
FAQ—shorthand for “Frequently Asked Questions”—can be replaced by “How to be an informed buyer”
In each case, the goal is to have every word of your Web site appeal to the visitor’s point of view, rather than the business’s point of view.
The home pages of many Web sites have brief “mission statements.” Invariably, these, too, are written from the business’s point of view rather than the visitor’s point of view. “Our goal is to create happy and satisfied customers.” What does that tell you about the business? Is it believable? Does it help separate the business from its competition? Does it offer a benefit?
In most cases, mission statements, taglines, or mottos simply waste space and are ignored by visitors on their first visit and irritate visitors upon subsequent visits. Why subject your visitors to the same words each time they visit? Instead of wasting space on an empty claim that cannot be proven, or a claim that is difficult to translate into a visitor benefit (“Family-owned since 1955”), concentrate on developing headlines and links that satisfy your visitor’s need for information