Are you irritating people with your website?
Apr 20, 2015Copy shouldn?t cut corners
Apr 24, 2015Of course you can?t please everyone. No matter how hard you try. But if you?re trying to provide a website to persuade people to become customers, you at least have to try and please the majority. That means putting yourself in their shoes and looking at your site from a customer?s point of view.
If you don?t you might be in danger of turning them away in their droves without knowing why.
Ask yourself what irritates you about sites you visit. And then check to see if you?re doing the same.
Are you talking to the right people? If not you should be. Of course your site should be targeted at the type of audience you?re aiming for. But it doesn?t end there. If you?re using examples of typical customers for instance, new visitors have to feel as if they?re included.
Talking about lifestyles they can only drool over or people they have nothing in common with will only alienate them. They want to feel as if they themselves are just what you?re looking for.
Is your text a sight for sore eyes? There?s nothing worse than trawling through great swaths of text to find the relevant bits. Before long your eyes glaze over and you start to drift off. Usually to a more user friendly site.
You can still say the same things, but in a way that?s easier to read. Breaking it up into paragraphs stops it looking like such hard work. As do bullet points or clearly marked sections so they can choose which parts they want to read.
Which leads nicely on to the content of all that text. Remember you?re not writing a thesis. Describing something in detail doesn?t automatically mean it has to be complicated. Or incomprehensible. Simple words and language will suffice for most people.
The last thing they want is to be made to feel ignorant. Even if they are. They won?t get the impression you?re showing off either. You?re supposed to meet them on the same level, not from a vantage point they can?t even see.
They might seem unimportant in the great scheme of things. But if you want their custom you have to provide customers with a place they?ll feel comfortable. Making your website a pleasant place to be means they?re likely to stay longer. And want to come back to again. It?s not too much to ask really is it?