Why some graphic designers and internet marketers are missing the point completely...

If you have ‘experts’ telling you how to design or write your website, you may be getting a ‘bum steer’.

What prompts me to write to you about this is that my graphic designer recently sent me a link to a blog that purports to ‘prove’ (through the use of eye tracking heat maps) that website visitors ‘don’t read’ ...

The contention is that the ‘old fashioned’ copy intensive format won’t work online, and that the only way to communicate in your website is with bullet points and highlighted key words and short copy.

This ‘proof’ really bothered me until it hit me during the night last night that the “232 test subjects looking at thousands of websites” were being expected to be evaluate random sites with no relevance to their interests.

 

OF COURSE these test subjects won’t ‘read’ the sites put before them.

It’s like putting a couple of hundred magazines in front of you on subjects that would bore you to death, and then watching your reading patterns!  It ain’t going to happen.  But put a handful of magazines amongst them that are on your particular passions and interests and I’m sure you’d be reading those line by line.  Right?

My take on this?  Of course, good clean layout and tightly written copy that encourages reading and scanning is desirable, but it doesn’t ‘prove’ that prospects won’t ‘read’.  

It only proves that ‘people’ won’t read sites they have no prospect of being interested in.  And really, aren’t we only wanting to talk to prospects?

If you’re interested, the link that purports to ‘prove’ people don’t read websites, (to my mind falsely so), is: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Anyway, I had to get this off my chest!

Your Business' Website...

I don’t normally post Marketing Mentor articles onto the internet. But I think business people need to see this one...

Based on the feedback from the few people who’ve seen this article pre-release, it has hit a nerve!

(In fact, creating a good website is one of the 10 strategies you need to recession proof your business. If you'd like to know how to recession proof your business, go to www.marketinghelponline.com and use the enquiry form to request a copy of my new white paper. It'll tell you the exact steps to take.)

There’s clearly a LOT of frustration and discontent out there with websites. One client told me he paid a ‘web company’ $7,000 months ago to do his website, and still it isn’t finished. Other clients admit they’re embarrassed to even give out their web address.

It seems a lot of people are being taken advantage of, and sold on the fact that web design is some mysterious area they’ll never understand.

Now, we’re NOT web developers. But we do understand what good communication is. Especially in the online world where, as one web expert quipped, people have the attention span of a fruit fly!

In short, we decided this article would be too valuable for you to miss out on. Especially as it reveals what we did, step by step, to redesign and re-write a client's website. The aim is to maximise his online sales. He’s excited about these ideas and already has his web company re-doing his site.

Click here to download the article.

It’s totally free to you and without obligation.

Chris

P.S. Naturally, I look forward to the day you come on board for a full membership of Marketing Help Online. You can join Marketing Help Online level one for free at www.marketinghelponline.com