9 Easy To Follow Tips For Generating More Business Leads From Your Website By John C. Meyer John s Copy Magic

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1 9 Easy To Follow Tips For Generating More Business Leads From Your Website By John C. Meyer John s Copy Magic Lima Dr. Houston, TX info@johnscopymagic.com

2 9 Easy To Follow Tips For Generating More Business Leads From Your Website Tip # 1: Your web pages should create an urgency to buy The main focus of your web pages should be to build momentum and create urgency for your site visitors to take action. You want your visitors to buy something, or to download a white paper about your business, products or services, so you will have them in your prospect database. If you keep in touch with visitors with updates, they will know where to call when they are ready to buy. Here are a few ways to create urgency: Time-limited offers Free reports White papers All of these help you create urgency in your prospects, but it is important that they all be credible and honest. If you have an offer that ends at midnight, and your visitor comes back to your site the next day and sees the offer still there, his belief in the credibility of your business will drop dramatically, and news travels fast through Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Create your urgency with integrity or you may damage your company s credibility. 2

3 Tip # 2: Decide exactly what you want to say and say it. Deciding on the most important aspects of your business to put on your Home Page can be very difficult. You may have both a service and a product aspect to your business. You may have several divisions you want to spotlight on your home page. Your company may have specialized services that need to be explained to have the greatest impact on your visitors. These complications make it harder to come up with a balanced message for your home page, so many companies end up with a message that conveys nothing of value to the site visitor. This results in a boring home page that fails to hold the visitor s interest, and causes him to leave the site without taking any action. Here are some suggestions to engage your visitor s interest and keep them on your site: Decide what will be the main purpose of your site. Choose the audience to want to focus your writing on Write a great headline to that audience that is compelling enough to cause them to keep reading. 3

4 Tip # 3: Give your site visitors the answer to their questions Before they ask Think about the key concerns that your site visitors will have on their minds when they visit your site for the first time, then answer those concerns in headline and the first paragraphs on your home page. A software design firm may have as their headline: We have been designing software for small business since 2000 That headline at the top of their site immediately answers two important questions: Does this firm design software for small business? Has this firm been in business long enough to have solutions for your business? That headline gives the small business visitor some assurance that they have found what they have been looking for, and invites them to continue reading on your home page. You will then have the opportunity to go into specific detail about your products and services and build momentum and urgency for your visitors to take action. If your message is unclear, or of not enough interest to your visitor, he will leave your site and go to another site that is more interesting or is more suitable to his needs. Before deciding on what message you want to convey to your first time site visitor, you should spend some time thinking about what questions your target market will have for you What is his top concern? Determine what questions he may have about your company and answer them in your headline and first paragraphs. Tell him what type of solutions you provide for your clients. 4

5 Tip # 4: How to build a multi-page sales pathway There are times when your visitors may need to link to several pages on your site to shop for a product or service, or to sign-up for a free trial or a white paper. It is usually best if all of those things can be completed on a single page, but if your visitor needs to make selections from several products and services, he may need to be taken to other offer pages on your site. From there he may have to go to the payment or submission page. Here are a few tips that can be helpful in this process: Reduce the number of pages, if you can. The more pages your visitor has to navigate, the more likely he is to leave your site before finishing. The simpler the page, the better. Get essential information only. You can gather other information about your visitors at another time. Write in short, clear sentences. Your visitors want easy to understand directions. Use positive active verbs. They create momentum for your visitors to take action. If you follow the above suggestions, you will create multi-page pathways that are inviting and easy for your visitors to understand and use. Tip # 5: How to make your site easy to scan Here are some points you should consider, that will help your visitors scan your site quickly: It is easier for your visitors to scan your longer text if it is in a reasonably narrow single column. If you use plenty of subheads on your home page, your visitors will find it easier to scan and are more likely to commit to reading it. Indent key elements in your text to stress their importance. The main idea you want to convey to your site visitors is that this page is going to be easy to read. If it looks like hard work, your visitor may leave and find another site. 5

6 Tip # 6: Start your text with a fast pace and follow through to a strong finish Your home page text has to grab your visitor s attention within the first five seconds or he will stop reading. That means pulling him into the text quickly and firmly. You get his attention by having something dramatic or important to say, or by making a significant promise in the first headline and the first paragraph. Now that you have his attention, how do you hold his interest? You charge straight into the promise or important point. No long sentences, no long words. You jump in fast and simple with short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. Your fast pace opening text pulls your visitor in. If he has an interest in your product or service, this is the best way of getting him involved so he will keep reading to the end. You will also need a strong finish, because if the finish is weak, the visitor will leave your site disappointed, forgetting what he read about on your site, and may go to another site to find what he needs. Think about how the messages on your site could be structured to have a strong ending so that it sticks in the visitor s mind and causes him to take action, now or later. 6

7 Tip # 7: All your links must look the same Since the early days of the web, text links have been blue and underlined. At Yahoo! and MSN, the links are blue and become underlined at mouse over. Blue and underlined is the visitor s expectation when exploring a site for the first time. He has to figure out how your site works, so he can get to the pages he is interested in. Part of that learning process is figuring out what the links look like on your site. If your links are blue and underlined, everyone will know what they are. If they are different colors, or not underlined, it will cause confusion to your visitor until he figures out where your links are. This will make it harder for a new visitors to get where he wants, and find what he wants. If this happens a new visitor s attention can vanish in an instant. You need to make it as simple as possible for new visitors to your home page to understand your site and determine if it is going to be easy to use. The simplest thing you can do is to make sure that your text links are immediately recognizable. Tip # 8: Links should be placed for ease of use Your website will most likely have many links on each page, so the question I have for you is this: Are the text links on your page placed where your visitor s eye is naturally drawn once he has found what he is looking for? After reading your text and filling out the form for an offer, your visitor should find the text link beneath the form, not above the form as I sometimes see. This makes it easy for your visitor to find the link and submit his order. 7

8 Tip # 9: You need to update your homepage periodically A visitor that comes to your site often may find it disturbing if your site is exactly the same each time, giving him the impression that nobody is home It will be beneficial to your business if you can find some element to update periodically. This indicates to your regular visitors that your site is alive and evolving. Here are a few suggestions to try: Links to new articles or newsletter archives Timely and relevant news feeds Short text on new products, services, or price introductions Announcements about new studies, results, white papers, testimonials. Keep your site focused on the interests and needs of your visitors, and keep obviously out-of-date information off your home page, so your visitors will know you are paying attention. 8

9 A brief history of John Meyer s marketing career and how I work with my clients Prior to starting my freelance copywriting career, I had twenty years experience in marketing. I marketed everything from personal products to insurance, gaining experience from a wide range of companies. I know how difficult it is to generate good leads for a business, so I work with owners and marketing managers to capture more leads for their marketing and sales campaigns. By writing honest, compelling copy for those campaigns, I have been very successful in causing potential customers to take the actions that my clients desire. I quote for each project, assessing the amount of work and complexity of the work involved to complete each project. My process is this: First I speak with you by phone and find out the details of the project you want me to write copy for. Next, I ask a lot of questions about the project, your marketing objectives, your prospects and your customers. After I have all the information that you supply, I do research on the internet to get the most complete information available on the web about your type of product or service and your competition, to use in preparing a first draft. After I get your feedback on the first draft, I make revisions as needed. Only when you are 100% satisfied, do I consider the job done. I am a fast copywriter. Once I have determined the parameters of your project, I will give you a firm completion date. For payment, I take Visa and Master Card at this time. Please contact me for a complementary copywriting consultation and price quotation John C. Meyer John's Copy Magic Lima Dr. Houston, Texas info@johnscopymagic.com 9