Your Web site has a single motive:
To ‘ignite’ your visitors to take action.
This prime motive is behind every element of your Web site design and content. Start with the idea that you have one chance to reach your customers. They will never return to your site unless you make it worth their while, and they will not buy unless you encourage/force/ask them to.
This will impact the 3 prime elements working together in any excellent Web site: the mechanics, content, and design. Right now, let’s focus on the mechanics of writing.
Your Template for Success
Here is a simple template for a Web site which you can readily adapt to meet your needs. Use it as a jumping-off point for an income-generating Web presence.
The 3-Part Home Page & MUST-HAVE Button
1. Headline
A strong, enticing headline is the most important element of your home page, because it is the first impression you make on your visitors. Make it complete enough to provide real food for thought, and long enough for any graphics to load further down on the page.
The secret to a good Web headline is that visitors want to read about THEMSELVES, not about you. Their first question will always be:
‘What’s in this Web site for me?’
That’s what you need to tell them right away. State a benefit that clearly enhances their life, using power words such as ‘Discover’, ‘Announcing’, ‘Breakthrough’, ‘Facts’, ‘New’, ‘Now’, ‘Save’, ‘Yes’: all words that are active, grab the attention of your visitors, and promise them something.
The two most powerful words to motivate your prospects to read further are ‘You’, and ‘Free’.
2. Proposition
A proposition is prospect-centered. It is all about them. Either it states their current situation, and ‘ain’t it awful’, or it reveals a dream they have about what their life could become: ‘If only…’
Go back to the roots of the product or service you are offering. Why does it exist in today’s world, and what good does it do for people? Ask yourself why you are involved with it. Be idealistic. The proposition section of your home page sets up a kind of vacuum, which you are about to fill with…
3. Benefits
A benefit is anything that will make your customer’s life better by using your product or service. This is the payoff, and the crucial section of your home page where you must deliver the goods. Take a good look at what you are promoting, and then…
Write down each and every benefit you can, with no thought about which is the most important. You’ll order them later. Write down everything that can possibly do your customer some good. Everything.
After finishing this ‘brain dump’, go back and prioritize. Don’t prioritize as you go, because that will inhibit you. List first, order second. When writing your home page, companion pages, and sales letter, begin with benefit one, then two, three and so on down to the least significant.
&…
The MUST-HAVE Button: Your Benefit-Rich Sales Letter
The one button you absolutely must link to from your home page is your benefit-rich sales letter.
A good home page is already a clear call to action. But it also can’t go on for too long or you will put visitors off. The analogy of your home page as an interesting magazine index is a good one. You should offer enough provocative information that any visitor absolutely must go deeper into your site. They just can’t hold themselves back.
Remember, it is the benefit-rich sales letter that always closes the sale.
Scott T. Smith of Copywriting.Net. Generate MORE sales with your Web site copy and print marketing communications. For a FREE writing analysis visit http://www.copywriting.net or call Scott at 1.800.798.4471 (toll-free in the US).
