7 Questions Your Home Page Should Answer
By7 Questions Your Home Page Should Answer
There’s a time-tested school of thought professional direct mail copywriters draw upon to inspire them to create attention-grabbing and compelling promotions.
It goes like this: Picture your prospect sorting through his or her daily mail standing over a trash bin. The primary objective is simple: dump as much of the stuff as possible.
A typical sort might include the following three categories:
*’forget it, no interest’
*’this is a must keep.’
*’this looks like it could be of interest, I’ll take a closer look.’
A similar approach is used by people looking for products and services on the internet.
Your prospect arrives at your web site with his or her finger on the mouse.
Because they have been conditioned by a seemingly never-ending sea of boring, self-promoting, hard-to-follow web sites, many have very low expectations.
They are LOOKING for a reason to click away – almost as soon as the home page fills the screen. Unfortunately, many marketers make it easy for them to press the button.
The real tragedy is that many of those same marketers have everything the prospect wants. They just don’t know how to communicate online.
Selling is selling. Face to Face. In ads. Via email. And especially on your web site.
You can have all the traffic in the world but if your content doesn’t grab your prospects’ attention and lead them through your sales story, you may end up with very skinny children.
Here are 7 questions your prospect wants answered:
1. What exactly is your service or product and why should I be interested? You have 3 seconds to answer this question. Otherwise, click: lost sales opportunity. Most home pages do a poor job which is why many business owners view their web site as a cost instead of an investment in what should be the most cost-efficient, productive salesperson they could ever hope to find. And make no mistake: it’s the “why should I be interested?’ part of the question you want to focus on. Put another way, they are really asking ‘What makes you different from your competitors?’
2. Will it work for me? The information on your home page must instantly send a compelling message to the prospect that says, “If you have a need for what our product or service does, we GUARANTEE it will work.” I’m not saying you must offer a guarantee but you must provide the kind of details that leave no doubt in your propspects’ minds that you can solve the problem or satisfy the need they’re bringing to you. Remember, you have the upper hand here. The prospect is looking for something. That’s why they came to your site. It’s your job to demonstrate why you have the best solution.
3. What kind of results can I expect? If you have won the “attention and interest battle”, you’re on your way to the front of the stage where you will have an opportunity to continue making your case. Make sure your answer takes the following into consideration: We think in pictures. That is, we “see” how a service or product can improve our lives. Your job, as a marketer, is to paint a picture that will allow the prospect to “see” how your product or service will improve their lives. Once we’ve done an effective job of engaging the prospect emotionally, we need to include logical reasons why this is a sound buying decision. As you know, people buy for emotional reasons (make me look better, feel better etc) first and then back up their emotional decision with logic eg. (these guys have an impressive customer list, the
organization has been in business for 11 years etc).
4. Who else has used this service and what were their results? This is where we need to offer irrefutable, third-party evidence that we can deliver. That means sprinkling compelling and meaningful testimonials around that leave no doubt in the prospect’s mind that they are in good hands. I wrote an article that I give to clients that offers a simple system for getting strong testimonials from your clients and customers. Not the “Mary was so nice and helpful’ blah blah that really does nothing to hammer home the true value you deliver but quantitative feedback you can use to extract winning testimonials. It’s simple to use. If you’re interested, email me and I’ll send you a copy.
5. How exactly do your services work? What’s the process and structure? This is an important part of the process. It demystifies your offering by helping the prospect establish some expectations. It increases the prospects comfort level. Especially if they have to answer to someone else. If you don’t do this, you run the risk that some
prospects will may away. Details sell and bring your offering to life.
6. Are you credible? Do you have the experience to help me? The prospect must be convinced you are the real deal. This is no time to be shy. Get your track record in front of their eyes – on the home page where it can win the day. I often see clients burying credentials in their site. Sadly, the reader never gets that far. That’s the kind of a selling ammunition you need on the front line – your home page. Make sure to highlight an industry awards you’ve received. For some businesses, a client list and numbers of years in business are other facts that can be used to convince the prospect.
7. What do I have to do next to get and use your services? Probably the second biggest mistake (and just as fatal) many web marketers make. They don’t identify the next step in the buying process for the prospect and invite him or her to take it. Huge mistake. And very costly. Prospects are lazy. Complacent. Easily distracted. Not self action-oriented. Guess what they do when we omit this step? Right. They just drift away after all the hard work we did to keep them in front of our message. Missed opportunity. Happens all the time.
Once your home page provides answers to the questions above, your conversion rates – getting your prospect to take the next step in the buying process – will increase.
Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.
