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The Holy Grail of Website Design

Search Engine Optimization has become the holy grail of website design. There are
an endless number of articles available on the Web, citing numerous tips and tricks
on how to maximize your search engine profile. I find this never-ending game of
catch-up with search engine programmers to be a futile exercise as it often leads to
the corruption of your website content.

There is no argument that driving traffic to your website is critical and as such SEO
is important. What is as important and I would argue, more important, is delivering
your marketing message to those prospects that come to your site. Attracting
thousands of visitors who really aren’t interested in what you have to offer is
counter-productive if attracting those visitors cost you money or has caused you to
bury your core value proposition.

An Alternative Multi-layered Website Design Strategy

There is an alternative multi-layered website design strategy that will deliver your
content in a variety of ways meeting the needs of a Web-audience with varying
degrees of attention and interest, while at the same time remaining search-engine
friendly and compatible with most commonly employed SEO practices.

The core objective, stated or unstated, of business websites is to deliver your
marketing message in an easy-to-find, understandable, memorable way that
compels your prospect to answer your call to action. With these goals in mind we
can construct an effective information architecture that presents your content in a
way that converts prospects into customers.

Finding What You Want Fast – Bulleted Points

As I have often preached, Web-visitors judge the quality of your website by the ease
with which they are able to find the information they came to find. I have also
repeatedly reminded anyone who listens that Web-audiences just don’t have the
time, patience or inclination to read most Web-copy.

These factors make it clear that when constructing the written portion of your
website, you should make sure you make ample use of

1. bulleted points

2. numbered lists

3. headlines and subheads, and

4. captions.

Understanding What You Need to Know – Extensive Articles

There is a caveat to this elemental approach to presentation, and that is you cannot
rely only on point-form presentation to communicate sophisticated ideas; you must
add supplemental information for those who need and want all the details, and for
search engines that seek-out and index fertile keyword-laden content.

The point-form style is designed to give Web-visitors a quick overview of who you
are and what you do; it tells them they are where they need to be to solve their
problem, and it provides them with the basic information they need to retain their
attention. But if you want to close the deal – turn prospects into customers – you
need to give your audience more. Link your bulleted items to extended content
presented in article format. These informative articles should be easy to read and
comprehend. Leave out the sales hype and concentrate on the values you offer that
benefits your potential clients.

Anecdotes & Name Dropping Gets Noticed

When you write these articles, or have them written for you by a professional, make
liberal use of anecdotes and name-dropping. These stories and references will get
indexed by search engines and Web-users will find your content serendipitously.

One of my favorite stories about the lack of communication, one that I used in an
article entitled, “The Brand Story – A Tale Worth Telling,” was taken from a great
book, “Information Anxiety,” written by Richard Saul Wurman, who retells the
anecdote of a woman seeking a divorce from her husband as told by U.S.
Representative Pat Swindall of Georgia. Much to my surprise when I checked the
logs for people reading my article, I found many discovered it accidentally by
searching for the congressman. This phenomenon was repeated in other articles,
whenever I discussed audio voice characteristics using examples of popular
personalities like Chris Rock, Dennis Leary, and Sidney Greenstreet, or when I
discussed the Web as a conversation environment as presented by Christopher
Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searle, and David Weinberger in their provocative book, “The
Cluetrain Manifesto.”

In the above paragraph alone I’ve made reference to nine personalities, two well-
know books, and an article of my own, all of which will get indexed by the search
engines and get found by someone, thereby driving traffic to my content.

Getting Heard Means Making An Impression

So now that you have constructed a website that gives visitors the information they
need quickly and easily; and we have supplemented that initial content with detailed
keyword-laden articles filled with reader-friendly stories and search-engine friendly
references; we are ready to add the final touch – the compelling deliver of your
marketing message.

What Makes Your Marketing Message Compelling?

As much as we would like to believe we are rational beings making decisions strictly
on logic, argument, and evidence – it is just not the case. We buy things from
people we like, not necessarily from people providing the best solution, and we
purchase products and services we want, not necessarily things we need.

As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in his best selling book, “The Tipping Point,” the
doctors who get sued for malpractice are not necessarily the lousy doctors, but the
doctors who don’t spend enough time talking to their patients. What we learn from
this is that we cannot ignore the human factor in making a marketing message
compelling, and the best way I know to humanize your website is with the sound of
the human voice.

A professionally delivered audio message delivered by an appropriate signature
voice not only delivers your message in a compelling, easy to comprehend manner,
but it also embeds that message in your prospects mind.

Getting What You Really Want

We all want more traffic to our websites, but in the process of attracting that traffic,
we cannot forget our more profound goal: more customers, more sales, more
revenue, and we cannot achieve that goal unless we deliver a meaningful,
memorable message that turns prospects into customers.

Jerry Bader is a principal partner of Ontario-based MRPwebmedia (http:// http://www.mrpwebmedia.com, http://www.136words.com, http://www.sonicpersonality.com). He can be reached at info@mrpwebmedia.com“>info@mrpwebmedia.com, Telephone: 905.764.1246.