When you are creating your website, take a tip from the Yellow Pages. Before the Internet, if someone had a problem and they needed someone to fix it for them, they went to the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages was the fastest and easiest way to find solutions to problems.

What were the basics of the Yellow Pages that can help your website?

• Simplicity makes sales. No fancy graphics, no pictures, no distractions. Just a book packed with easy to sort through information. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a nice looking design and some pictures or graphics to supplement the copy. I’m just saying keep focused on copy that sells and keep the distracting visuals to a minimum. Pretty pictures don’t sell. Great copy does.

• Little or no marketing fluff.  The ads were mostly straightforward and informational. It was generally too expensive for most businesses to waste space telling people how great they were. On top of which, people will immediately discount things like, “Our product is an amazing new, blah, blah, blah…” Keep the adjectives and the hyperbole out of your website copy. Give them real information and powerful, visitor-centered benefits.

• Another reason to keep graphics to a minimum. According to Zona Research, the average website visitor will skip your website if it takes more than 8 seconds to open. This problem has cost e-business over $4.35 billion annually. The web is all about speed and your competitor is only a click away. Make certain your website downloads fast.

Bob McClain or WordsmithBob, has been a website copywriter in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, since 2000. He has focused on developing new, more effective approaches to web writing, web content, web copywriting and Search Engine Optimization. Starting with a BA in Technical Communication and a minor in Creative Writing from Metro State University in St. Paul, McClain has worked diligently to end the use of "corp-speak" and "technospeak" online. His approach is to “humanize” the Web, using real information to guide people to buy rather than turning websites into advertisements that people can easily ignore. McClain is also the creator of Cheap SEO Website Marketing, a website devoted to helping people with the best solutions to DIY SEO at an affordable cost with tips and software reviews. More at Cheap SEO Website Marketing

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Originally posted 2007-10-18 08:03:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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