An easy way to improve your website content right now
I have about 100 books in my office and home libraries that cover the subject of writing. I have books on technical writing, copywriting, web content, copywriting, novel writing, mystery writing, magazine and article writing, etc.
Some of the books are more like memoirs, like Stephen King’s masterful and wonderful book. In writing. Many of them are really more like checklists. And quite a few are completely forgettable, but contain one or two really good nuggets that make the book worthwhile, so I’m keeping those.
Let’s talk about the content that is on your website right now. You will most likely not be happy with it. Maybe it hasn’t been updated in a long time. Maybe your business has changed, or the market has changed, but you’re still talking about things from yesterday.
Or, if you’re one of the 0.0001% of us who are lucky enough to be true visionaries, you’re talking about things that are so far in the future that no one can really understand what you’re saying. (I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met lately with stories of trying to build eCommerce businesses in the late 1980s, when the Internet was really compuserve + thousands of bulletin board systems.)
Now you can hire a copywriter, usability expert, or even the faithful Triple Dogs to come over and scrub your content. Experts can do a lot for you, from GSP (grammar/spelling/punctuation) checks to top-down rewrites and reorganizations of your entire site.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret: Even if you hire someone who has extensive experience in your industry, there’s a simple little truth you need to realize. That truth is this: You have forgotten more about your business than we will ever know.
You can say, “Tom, that’s great, but how do I take advantage of this wonderful truth?”
Easy. Pick 5-10 customers at random. Call them on the phone. Ask them if they have 10 minutes, you’re doing some research.
Ask them this very easy question:
Why did they buy from you? Why not go with someone else?
The answers will surprise you. They range from ease of use, best price, friendly staff, great service, you name it.
Now, hold your breath and ask them the second question:
What things do you like and dislike about us now?
This is where you get to the heart of the matter. They will tell you where you shine and where your ineptitude knows no bounds. Okay, it’s all business.
Next, get down to the nitty-gritty when it comes to your site. Ask them to visit the site right now while you’re on the phone.
Ask them:
Does our website home page reflect all the things we’ve been talking about?
They will tell you where there is a mismatch, believe me. They’re going to say, “Look, to be honest, we bought your solution despite your website. Your site is confusing, or over-designed, or talks about a lot of things that don’t interest us.”
What is the point of all this exercise? To discover the most relevant messages for your target market. See, relevance is probably the most underappreciated aspect of modern marketing.
Most people say they hate being marketed to, when they really mean they hate being interrupted by irrelevant marketing. Let’s face it, if your bank just screwed you over, and while you’re worried about it, you get an email or phone call from another bank promising a solution to this problem, would you be upset?
Of course not! The message would be relevant to you at that very moment.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you need to have that kind of pinpoint accuracy, but you do need to have the pulse of your market. If it’s not being relevant to your problems, needs, and wants, what’s the point of having a website?