Internet - The World Wide Web
What Should Happen When Visitors Arrive

What Should Happen When Visitors Arrive at the Introduction Stage

Four things should occur during the introduction stage:

Mutual introduction. From the moment they hit your Web site, visitors should begin learning about your firm, the products and services you sell, as well as your philosophy of doing business. The benefits you offer should be immediately apparent.

Image. Your Web site should project a unique image, one that is distinct from your competitors as well as appropriate for your philosophy of doing business.

Registration. Visitors must register by submitting, at bare minimum, their e-mail address and, preferably, additional information.

Qualification. Visitors have differing information requirements. Your Web site’s structure should make it easy for visitors to qualify their information needs, which will help them quickly locate desired information and help you fine-tune your dialog with them.

The biggest mistake most firms make is to create a home page for their Web site that features a big logo and their name, followed by a series of buttons with vapid titles like “About us,” “In the News,” “Our Products,” and “Contact.”

It’s interesting that businesses that have mastered the art of business-to-business or business-to-consumer direct mail fall down with a resounding thud when it comes to creating their home page. Home pages that waste their visitors time and fail to offer meaningful information or engage visitors in a dialog are doomed to failure.

Is your home page effective?
Start by viewing your home page from a visitor’s point of view and ask yourself, “What does the home page teach me?” If you can’t provide a meaningful answer to that question, your home page needs work. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does the Web site load quickly?

2. Does the Web site communicate the firm’s area of expertise?

3. Does the Web site describe the products or services offered?

4. Does the Web site offer news value that I will benefit by learning?

5. Does the Web site communicate how the firm differs from its competition?

6. Does the Web site invite me to participate?

If your Web site’s home page always appears the same, even if the contents are changed, visitors are unlikely to come back because the new content isn’t visible.

The second simple, but major, way you can improve your Web site is to choose titles for navigation links that offer obvious benefits to visitors. Think in terms of direct response marketing. You’d never receive an envelope or catalog in the mail with words like “About us,” “Our Products,” and “Contact.” Instead, every word on the envelope or front cover of a direct-response catalog is designed to offer a benefit and ask for an action.

Accordingly, strive to replace inward-directed links with links that offer benefits. Translate the categories of your Web site into clearly identified “benefit chunks.” For example:

“Products” could be translated into “Resources”

“About us” could be translated into “Experience”

“Contact us” could be translated into “Register to win” or “Free valuable report!”

FAQ—shorthand for “Frequently Asked Questions”—can be replaced by “How to be an informed buyer”

The home pages of many Web sites have brief “mission statements.” Invariably, these, too, are written from the business’s point of view rather than the visitor’s point of view. “Our goal is to create happy and satisfied customers.” What does that tell you about the business? Is it believable? Does it help separate the business from its competition? Does it offer a benefit?

In most cases, mission statements, taglines, or mottos simply waste space and are ignored by visitors on their first visit and irritate visitors upon subsequent visits. Why subject your visitors to the same words each time they visit? Instead of wasting space on an empty claim that cannot be proven, or a claim that is difficult to translate into a visitor benefit (“Family-owned since 1955”), concentrate on developing headlines and links that satisfy your visitor’s need for information.

* Source - Streetwise Relationship Marketing On The Internet
              Create one on one bonds with prospects
              and customers and keep them forever