Eye on the Prize
January 14, 2009
Typically I urge my clients to add content to their website, but this content should empower a goal, not inhibit it. Usually the website’s goal is to either directly produce revenue (an e-commerce website) or the website is intended to attract people to contact my client (a lead generation website). Quite often we lose site of these website objectives. Images, text, movies, and other glitzy media is added to the site without regard to purpose. Other times “administrative” information is added for a select few customers or because we can. Does this content aid the decision process of a potential customer, or does it detract? If you were a salesperson, would this information help the sale or would it make the sale more difficult? These are questions you should ask yourself when looking at your website.
The Value of the FAQ
A FAQ (frequently asked questions) can suffice for many pages of website content. This is because a FAQ is responding to the following two needs:
- The customers’ most likely concerns, and
- The information we most want to transfer to our customers.
When we net this FAQ information to 20 Q and As, much of the content on the website becomes redundant. Since we have an objective for our website, i.e., to sell something, we need to succinctly meet our customers’ needs without taking advantage of their time.
While good content adds search opportunities, useless or redundant content wastes your customers time. Develop content based on the sales funnel needs but, like a good salesperson, know when to be quiet. If you want to extend your customer discussion, use the blog.
The Blog Bar
A customer is often processing purchase information, long after the salesperson has made their pitch. Depending on the customer, they may internalize this process, others will externalize. The Company Blog can provide both these customer-types with a method to keep engaged with your company while they sort through their buying process. This is the watering hole they come to, to support their thinking. They read the company comments, they read the reviewer comments, they get comfortable with their decision. This is potentially where all that extraneous website verbiage can go – the Blog.
In summary, keep the site’s objective in mind when you look at the finished product. Ensure that you are thinking of the customers need for information and not your need to publish all the content you own. A FAQ can often get to the meat of the issue without pages of unnecessary text. And finally, your Blog can be the resting place of great ideas without a definitive sales purpose. Somewhat like this post just did. (-;
