I’m in the process of having one of my websites (www.confidentmarketer.com) critiqued. If you don’t know Bob Regnerus and you are marketing information on the web, you should check him out. What am I learning? For one thing, advertising on your site can sell, or it can brand you. It can’t effectively do both.
A website is often a confusing place to someone who hits it as a result of a Google search. That person is looking for words that match (hopefully, exactly match) the keywords he just typed into Google search. If, instead, there are many different messages and links on the page he first hits, chances are that he will click away before you can capture information about him.
Bob’s advice is to offer a series of yes or no questions that lead the visitor through your website. Too many choices get people off on a tangent. I’ve found this to be true in reviewing some of my client’s sites. I can easily get lost and far away from their own pages if their first page is a “portal site” with tons of links to other sites. I will follow the links that are of interest to me and eventually can’t easily get back to where I started.
If you want to act as a portal to other resources, it’s best to establish your own identity first, capture the visitor’s contact information, and let visitors have access to other links at a later time.
Make your site easy on the eyes and on the brain, and your business will thrive.
