3 ultra-short tips to improve your website [Vol. 4]

I'm writing to you this week while I'm about to drive to my parents' country house in a "no-wifi-only-some-half-dead-mobile-connection-under-an-apple-tree-if-you-are-lucky-while-minus-temperatures-outside" land.

It's not the first time I'll be going on the internet diet, so my ultra-short tip # zero for you this week would be: Go somewhere where there is physically no internet. You'll hate it, but it will be good for you.

And here the actual ultra-short actionable tips for your website:

#1 The basic principle of what's good and what's bad for your website

I love this drawing by WiderFunnel guys that shows what drives conversions:

lift model

Source: WiderFunnel

So now, instead of feeling overwhelmed and second-guessing your website decisions ask yourself these questions:

  • What is my value proposition here?
  • Is it relevant for my audience?
  • Did I formulate it clearly? Do they understand it?
  • How can I show my audience that they need the solution to their problem I'm solving here now?
  • Is there anything that distracts my visitors from focusing on what I'm trying to tell them?
  • Are there any uncertainties they may have that will make them hesitate to take action?

The original article describes it even a bit more detailed. Check it out.

#2 The "Inverted Pyramid" of writing: Put the most important info first

You know those "how to do X" articles that will first pretend they are Wikipedia and tell you everything about X...

What is X? Who invented X? How many kinds of X are there in the world?

"OMG, I'm gonna cry now!"

...and only then, 2000 words later, start to actually answer the "how to" part?

They are doing it wrong, (and they are only getting away with it because they are already famous and people share their articles without reading them).

If you want to impress your audience with a helpful answer, to woo them with a rare incident of their interests being a priority, answer their question first in your post / on your page, and only then start with all the "nice to know" stuff, say the folks from Nielsen Norman Group

Oh, it's just occurred to me that I've written about this, although using more words, in my post about when storytelling is bad for your business (where I even have an experiment to prove it).

#3 A surefire way to know that your post is meh

So, you wrote a new post. Let's see if it's any good.

Scroll through it reading just the subsection headings.

Is it still worth for your visitors to read the actual text of the subsections?

Or will they be able to get all the useful info there is just from these seven bold lines?

If it's the latter, I have bad news for you:

You've just written the "X obvious things about Y you knew anyways (but hey, it's beautifully formatted)" post. And - unless you are famous and people share your beautifully formatted articles without reading - your readers won't share or comment on it.

What to do instead?

Make sure you aren't repeating what everybody else has been saying and add your own perspective. Look at the topic from the different angle. Add the twist in the subsection headers. Add humor and personality.

Can't do that? Select a different topic for your post.

Otherwise, your visitors will "drive" through your post like it's an autobahn.

***

This would be it from me for the week.

Warm greetings,

Gill

P.S. Missed the previous short tips? Check them out here:

P.P.S. Unfortunately, I will have to leave you without a newsletter next week because I won't be able to return from the no-internet land on time to write you one, and planning in advance is for... people who have better organization skills than me. But there is truckloads of useful tips on my blog. Have you seen my new shiny blog page with all the categories and stuff?

Gill Andrews