How to make your web site a selling machine
(Why most web sites don’t help the sales process)
Most web sites – at best – only focus on the average visitor. All of the content is created for what this ‘average’ visitor wants, and written in the way that the ‘average’ visitor wants to hear about it. At worst, the web site only focuses on the company. The web site talks about the company, tells the visitor what they think they should know. All this is done with little regard for how even the ‘average’ visitor wants to hear it, see it, and experience it.
The user centered approach is clearly better, but there is still a problem. None of your visitors are ‘average’. Think about your real-world sales process. Sales people naturally customize their message for each type of buyer.
When a web site does not address each individuals needs, sales suffer. When a visitor is not able to find the specific information about your product or service that interests them, they tend to leave and search out another web site that does.
For example, a 2001 paper by user Interface Engineering shows “you can increase sales on your site up to 225% by providing the sufficient product information to your customers at the right time”1
What’s the solution? It’s called developing personas, and it’s brilliant. (I didn’t make it up.) It involves a completely new way of thinking about your web site and your customers. The idea of persona development was first introduced in 1999 by software developer and consultant Alan Cooper as a method of making software design more useful.
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How to make your web site a selling machine
