Online businesses need to reflect the concept that “Content is King” in the design, marketing, and writing of their web sites to truly be successful.
At Grantastic Designs, we always ask these 3 questions to online business professionals to see if they really understand the concept of “Content is King.” We find that if they cannot answer these 3 questions immediately, then that gives us a clearer idea of how prepared the client is to be online.
[LIST]
[]Why should I visit your web site?
[]Why should I return to your web site?
[*]What separates you from your competition?
[/LIST]
Why should I visit your web site (without spending any money)?
The #1 reason people visit web sites is for information. Thus, if you provide information for people such as free marketing tips, a how-to section, or tips for buying your product or service, you have given a benefit for visiting your site.
[SIZE=4]Why should I return to your web site?[/SIZE]
People usually won't buy from you until they visit your site 4-5 times. So you should give people a reason to return to your site. Updating product or service information, timely how-to tips, or an upgraded software demo are good reasons for people to return to your site or maybe even bookmark it.
This question also indicates web marketing savvy. Coca Cola does not show the same commercial year after year after year because people will get bored with the same commercial. Nor should anyone show the exact same web site month after month after month. A site should be updated at least every 1 to 3 months, even if the changes are minimal. (Search engines re-index/re-catalog changed pages.)
[SIZE=4]What separates you from your competition?[/SIZE]
We expect to hear company's unique selling proposition (USP) here and try to design or market the site based on this. We are usually amazed when people tell that they are the *best* at something but cannot back it up with customer testimonials or data. We also get many potential clients that have no unique selling proposition.
We often hear the "best customer service" and the "lowest prices" together. From our standpoint, if you want to hire a really talented customer service staff, you have to pay them well. That will affect your overhead and, thus, your prices. Also, we have found that the lowest prices rarely get the best quality.
Online businesses who can answer these questions immediately do extremely well on the web because they are giving people reasons to come and return to their sites. They show that they are willing to listen to their visitors and adapt their site to help their visitors get what they want.
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