You’re So Vain [Inbound Marketing Inquirer]

Self
Courtesy of AuntyLaurie on Flickr

The Tip Jar is a weekly inbound marketing tip that is only available to subscribers. This week’s asks if your website is suffering from vanity. Is it speaking about you and your company, or is it speaking to your customers and their problems?

Tip Jar: You’re So Vain (I Bet You Think This Site Is About You)

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Tip Jar: You’re So Vain

Some faithful readers may think that the advice in today’s Tip Jar runs counter to some of my previous tips. One of my challenges to website owners is to make sure the site is accomplishing YOUR business goals. It’s there to serve your needs, not your visitors’. But that advice refers to the website strategy and the actions you’re asking them to take. Today, I’m talking about the actual copy on the site and words you’re using to convey your messages.

You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner

When I look at the home pages of many websites, I get the impression that whomever wrote them had one eye in the mirror and thought every visitor would dream of becoming a customer because it’s so obvious how awesome they were. Is this any way to begin a relationship?

Let’s use a cocktail party as a metaphor for the very first time a stranger visits your website…

Hello, I Love Me

This has undoubtedly happened to you before. When you meet someone for the first time and they immediately dive into a self-absorbed soliloquy about themselves, what’s the impression? Not very good, right? But if, instead, they show interest in who you are and ask probing questions to find out what you may have in common, then the conversation becomes much more meaningful and interesting.

Why should someone’s first visit to your site be any different? Here’s a test: What’s the very first word in the very first paragraph of text on your home page? Is it the name of your company? If it is, then you’re being vain. But don’t feel bad – it’s extremely common. Our first instinct when designing a website is to describe who/what we are. The problem with that is your visitor doesn’t care. They only care about what you can do for them and if you don’t start there, then you’re asking them to do the work of figuring it out.

So what’s the alternative?

At the risk of sounding vain, I’ll use my own website as an example. The first message a visitor sees on my home page is “Increase qualified visits and convert more leads into more customers.” This immediately lets them know how their life could be different as a result of reading my blog, subscribing to my newsletter or working with me. It goes on to provide a very brief explanation as to why inbound marketing is important and then invites them to learn more about inbound marketing, not Domesticating IT.

The messaging is entirely focused on the needs and problems of the visitor, not me and what I do, all the awards I’ve won, how many offices I have, etc. That’s not unimportant information, but it’s much more effective after the introduction is over and your visitor is interested in knowing that information.

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Reading List

Website Design: Less Is More [With TED Video Goodness]

This post is a good companion to this week’s tip jar, as it delves into simplicity and why it’s really bad to provide too many choices on your website. The bottom line is that the more choices a person has, the less likely they will be to choose any of them!

Read more…

64 Google+ Content Strategies [Infographic]

Google+ isn’t only a social network. It’s the very backbone (and future) of Google itself. Specifically, Author Rank is going to be a big deal for content creators and this post provides a number of tips for building your presence on G+.

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Foursquare For Business App Launched

Foursquare has just released a new mobile app, Foursquare for Business, to serve as an extension to the existing merchant dashboard, giving businesses the ability to manage specials and view recent activity and analytics from their mobile devices.

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