Page 110 - Duct Tape Marketing

A Web Presence That Works Day and Night

“An attractive Web site is an effective Web site.”
I’m all for great design. Great design alone can help sell a product,

but an attractive Web site that doesn’t appeal, navigate, or communi-
cate the right message is of little value.

Ultimately, great Web design comes down to combining elements
in ways that make it easy for people to engage with the content, learn,
and do pretty much what you want them to do without having to
think about it.

While there are proven design conventions for the Web, testing
is really the only way to get it totally right. Usertesting.com is a great
place to start. Get your customers to use your site while you observe
and do plenty of A/B testing using a tool such as Google Website
Optimizer (www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=website
optimizer&continue=http://w w w.google.com/analytics/site
opt/%3Fhl%3Den&hl=en).

“I know what my customers search.”
Business owners or anyone experienced with an industry can

become blinded with knowledge. You know that the industry standard
jargon for your widget is, “blah, blah, blah,” but do your prospects
have any idea that’s what it’s called? All that matters is what they actu-
ally type into that box when they go to a search engine. Don’t assume
you know what it is. Do your keyword research using a tool such as the
Google search-based keyword tool (www.google.com/sktool/) and you
may be surprised to find that people actually search for a wide variety
of things related to your business.

Don’t forget to ask your customers what they search.

“People will go to my contact page to find me.”
Have you ever visited a site with the primary goal of getting a

phone number or other contact information only to have to hunt
around for twenty minutes for that one piece of data?

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