Redbox Biz Blog

Website copy is the least mentioned feature of any website. Many people pay attention to the visuals of a website, how graphics look and what colours to use but I would like to add that the best looking website in the world will not catch your prospect’s attention if your website copy is ordinary. (Website copy refers to the text or words on your website.)

In many cases, what is found on websites are just words taken directly from a company brochure or Powerpoint presentation. They’re impersonal, cold and speak to a group, instead of to you, the customer. Most times, the words are generic - they say the same thing over and over such as “the best in the industry”, “strive to achieve your expectations”, “your best partner” and more. Big words but also empty words which don’t mean a thing.

But website copy should not be overlooked because the right words can make your business sizzle instead of just simmer. The right words can send the right message. The right words put your business in positive light. In short, the right words help you sell.

So how do you ensure you’ve got the right words? Here are some tips on website copy.

1. Use simple words.
Oh how the world loves complicated, big and long words although short ones often will do. Look through your own website copy and cut out all the unwieldy words. Use a dictionary and find simpler synonyms. Why short/simple words? People want to understand what you’re saying. If they get a headache trying to understand, it shows you haven’t communicated.

2. Make it positive.
Positive words always sound better on your website. (Who wants to read negative copy really?) Positive words are easier to understand and remember. Leave phrases like “not uncommon” to literature, not on your website. Of course it is not possible all the time to be positive. In cases where you cannot be chirpy and positive, try to ’soften’ the negativity if you can. Replace negative words with positive or neutral connotation words. In short, don’t transmit your information negatively if you can do it positively!

3. Look at benefits and advantages.
People go for one particular radio station - the WIIFM. It’s called “What’s In It For Me?” This “station” rules their heads when they read your web copy. If you don’t give them what they need, they’ll disappear. So tell them upfront what’s in it for them. Why should they read more, read on or buy your product/service? This is where benefits rule over features. Tell me why this product is amazing for me (I don’t care if it has 10 new knobs or 23 different colours). Tell me why your service is better than your competitors.

4. Speak to one, not many.
On the web, assume you are speaking to one person, not a whole stadium of people. This helps you write on a one-to-one basis which in turn helps you become very much like a friend, instead of a business.

5. Be active, not passive.
When you are writing, replace passive sentences with active sentences. The active voice helps to involve your reader and prompts a reaction. For instance, which of the below sounds better?

a. The book was returned by Alice.

b. Alice returned the book.

So pay attention to the words you write for your website. The right website copy brings an emotional dimension to your business. It helps you stand out from your competition. Now isn’t that a good enough reason to write better?

Tip: Brush up on your grammar (if it isn’t polished already) by reading William Strunk’s The Elements of Style (circa 1918 - just shows good advice is timeless!) available FREE from www.bartleby.com/141

Confused by the title of my post today? Don’t be. The Tao of Selling is simple - if you want to sell, be it a product or service, your first aim is NOT to sell.

I am sure you have come across pushy sales people. Their aim is to sell you something, anything. Even something useless. And you resisted.

Oh, the more they tried to convince you, the more you disliked it and the more you said no. You said no because you hated being sold to. You hated the idea of buying from that sales person although you may have initially wanted to buy the product. But those initial feelings wore off as the sales person kept bugging you.

This reminds me of many stories of my campus friends. We graduated back in the late 90s (during the dreaded recession) and a good number of my friends were afraid they would not get jobs so they grabbed whatever job that came their way. Many ended up as insurance agents. Insurance agents sell first to their circle of family, then friends, then acquaintances.

Many “friends” whom I had not spoken to, or even considered friends, started knocking on my door. They called my landline (in those days, handphones were a luxury and only very few people had them!) and they often wanted to “have a cup of coffee” with me. These people were so eager to close a deal (or any deal for that matter) that they became increasingly pushy, which in turn made me angry and cheated.

After 8 years (and now coming to 9 soon) of running my own business, I believe that in order to sell, one should stop ’selling’. And that is why Tessa Stowe’s article on  “How to Overcome Sales Resistance Forever” gets the thumbs-up from me. She is absolutely right when she says that to sell, one has to forget about selling. A contradiction? Not at all.

Read and enjoy her insightful article. And remember: don’t sell, if you want to sell.

How To Overcome Sales Resistance Forever
©Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation, 2006

When you’re speaking to someone about your services do you sometimes feel as if a barrier is coming up from them? The person may resist listening to you, they may resist opening up to you and they possibly might not trust you right from the beginning. These are all signs of sales resistance. Sales resistance is virtually an automatic reaction we all have. To understand this, put yourself in their shoes.

Put yourself in their shoes and think about your own reaction when someone is trying to sell you something. How does it make you feel? Do you feel resistant? Do you feel tense? Do you feel that all the seller cares about is making a sale instead of caring about you? Do you want to leave the conversation as soon as possible? If you feel like this, it is only natural that the person you are talking to will also feel like this if you are trying to sell them something.

The key to overcoming sales resistance is to forget about selling! When you’re having a conversation with someone, it’s best not to have the intention of selling him or her anything. Forget about selling. Instead have the intention of having a conversation to explore whether you can help the person get what they want. If it turns out that they have a want or need for your service, they will decide to buy.

If someone is having a conversation with you and you feel they sincerely want to help you, how does that make you feel? Relaxed? Interested? Keen to know more? Again, this is an automatic reaction we all have. Notice there is no “sales” resistance with this approach.

Please note you can’t fake sincerity. You can’t pretend you really want to help someone and at the same time be thinking that you really want to make a sale no matter what. What you are “really” thinking will be picked up by the person you’re talking to. They’ll know right away if you’re sincere.

There is another way to overcome sales resistance: get yourself known.

If people don’t know you, they may perceive you and what you’re selling as a possible high risk, and people naturally and automatically tend to resist what they perceive as high risk.

When you are well known in your niche and positioned as an expert, people will automatically and naturally perceive you as low risk. People rightly or wrongly automatically think that if you are well known and positioned as an expert, you must be good at what you do otherwise you would not have achieved this status.

When you are well known people will be attracted to you and will be open to what you have to offer and say. There will be very little resistance – provided of course your intention is not to sell them something!

In summary, if you want to overcome sales resistance forever there are two things you need to do. The first is don’t have the intention of making a sale when you’re talking to someone. Instead, have a conversation with the intention of helping them. Trust that those who have a need or desire for your services will buy them. The second is to get known fast as this will, amongst other things, overcome the risk perception of doing business with you.

Tessa Stowe works with Coaches, Consultants and Service Professionals who are resisting selling their services as they don’t want to be seen as pushy or sales-y. Her FREE monthly Sales Conversation newsletter is full of tips on how to sell your services by just being yourself. Sign up now at www.salesconversation.com.

Whenever I meet prospects, the first thing they remark is that they’ve seen the websites we’ve built for clients and these websites are simple. Straightforward.

While most designers might be offended by this remark, I don’t - in fact, I can almost do a cartwheel. I feel glad.

The most recent comment came yesterday during a meeting with a soon-to-be client. She had been going through a list of client websites which we had sent her and she said the websites were simple. She said she could understand the information as well as find information quickly.

Most people think designing a simple website is an easy job. Please don’t confuse simplicity with ease-of-design.

It is easy to be complicated, to design as one pleases, without consideration for the website visitor. You have probably seen a number of complicated websites on the Internet; it does not take much to overfill a website with details, information in all shapes and typefaces, graphics which make no sense and contribute not at all to the overall purpose of a website. Websites crammed full of everything and anything which the website owner believes should be there. But websites like these make navigation extremely very difficult for the website visitor.

That’s why I say, it’s easy to be complicated. Even easier to design a complicated website full of stuff and fluff.

But our job is not to overcomplicate. Our job as web design people is to help our clients understand that we (yes, we as in the client and ourselves, the designers) do not call the shots.

Whether a website succeeds or fails should be evaluated from the perspective of a website visitor. Why? Because a website is designed to deliver value (which in any case should be information) to the website visitor. This means, we always ask the number one question: Can the website visitor find what he or she came looking for?

For us, we plan for simplicity and organised structure before we design any website. It is easy to just dump all information into a website (the designer doesn’t evaluate the information - he will just copy and paste the text directly as per his customer’s request anyway. His job is “just design”). It’s a million times harder to think about how information should flow, where the website visitor should proceed, how the information should be structured and more.

While it is hard work building simplicity into any website, the experience is obvious when the website is used by our clients’ clients. They tell us that they can find what they need. They can understand what’s written on the website. More importantly, they stay on the website long enough to find what they need. They enjoyed the web experience. And if they liked the experience, definitely they’ll return again.

The next time you visit a website, ask yourself if you’ve enjoyed navigating the website. If the experience turned you off, find out why and don’t put your website visitors through the same rigmarole when they come to your website!