Remember when you were young and used to go to a convenience store and the candy bars were huge? And a bag of chips was only 20 cents? Maybe even less than that.
Maybe I’m just telling my age. Times are changing.
Perhaps you can say, “remember when there was no microwave oven?” or “I can remember when we didn’t have ipods”.
The one thing that’s consistent in life is change. It seems that change is happening more rapidly!
Websites certainly have changed. Since the internet was launched in the early 1990’s, websites have gone from simply text; to graphics and text; to graphics, videos and text.
People thought that they could save money if they simply transposed their cool looking copy-heavy brochures over to websites. Creating clickable areas and pages (as menus). But times have changed.
We go to websites for one reason. Content.
And he who has the best content wins. Not nice graphics (although that helps to communicate the content), not bells and whistles (rarely ever). You need great content!
So how do you create dynamic content that get’s noticed? Here’s 3 ways to develop great content:
- Put yourself in your audience shoes. Imagine who you want reading your content. Get into their head-space. Imagine where they’ll be. What they’ll be doing. Why they would come to your website. Then become them (as much as possible). Or hire someone who knows and loves your audience; and can write with amazing skill (it’s always worth the cost)!
- Benefits. Benefits. Benefits. Imagine what their problems are. What they’re lacking. Why they need you. If you only had a few seconds to give them a reason to meet you; what would it be? The best way to get people’s attention is to give them clear benefits for each of their major issues.
- Be concise. The average person spends about 10-20 seconds per page. No one has time any more; considering that Google (Bing, Yahoo, etc) gives thousands of websites to look at for answers. People make up their decision to stay or leave your site in about 30 seconds or three clicks. You have to be concise: use bullet points or eye interruptions to give your main points. Keep your pages short and your menus even shorter.
When I was a kid, I had only one “5 and Dime” to go to. I used to enter with my pocket change, knowing of its limitations. I would spend minutes looking over all the stuff near my eye-level before making a decision. I wanted the best for money.
People still want the best, except they have hundreds of choices on the internet. They have economic limitations still, and they will spend a bit of time once they find the right content. Have the right, informative, entertaining, engaging content and they’ll stay with you for years as a loyal customer.
Just keep the content current! Stay tuned to next time for ways to do that.
