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At the site level, you must always ask:





• Has the sales path clearly and obviously mapped the actions your
  visitors should take?


• How well do you guide your visitors step by step?


• Where are the holes in the system?


• How many visitors are falling through them?





On top of these, at the level of every single one of your pages, as well
as your site overall, you must always ask:





• What actions satisfy the objective?


• Who needs to be persuaded to take action?


• How do you persuade them most effectively to take action?

It's absolutely essential that your site has:

• Clear and compelling copy
  
  
• Copy that speaks about benefits, not features
  
  
• Copy that speaks the language of your visitor, not that of your tech department or your marketing department

Your navigation must be:

• Visible
  
  
• Clear
  
  
• Simple
  
  
• Intuitive
  
  
• Consistent

• Does the page grab visitors' attention -- in about eight seconds?
  
  
• Does the page stimulate their interest and reinforce that they're in the right place?
  
  
• Does the page inspire the desire to take the action of clicking deeper toward a purchase?
  
  
• Is how to take that action obvious and easy?
  
  
• After they've clicked, does the next page give them satisfaction by providing them with exactly what they wanted exactly how they wanted it?

• Is the look and feel professional?
  
  
• Is the navigation obvious and simple? (And is it consistent throughout your site?)
  
  
• Is your unique selling proposition (USP) clearly stated and strong?
  
  
• Is your information architecture constructed from the visitor's point of view?
  
  
• Does your navigation anticipate and clearly support all reasonable path choices?
  
  
• Does the layout reflect knowledge of eye scanning patterns and "sweet spots"?
  
  
• Does the choice of page elements reflect knowledge of how visitors use text versus graphics online as opposed to in print?
  
  
• Are the graphics and the text appropriate and well chosen/written?
  
  
• Does the page reflect principles of good usability?
  
  
• Does the page utilize expert sales principles that encourage a buying decision (which I explained in my last article)?
  
  
• Does the page utilize knowledge about consumer psychology and the different personality types?
  
  
• Does the page make use of knowledge about online buying behavior?
  
  
• Does the page inspire trust and build rapport? (Be aware that security is more of an emotional issue than a technology one.)
  
  
• Is contact info easy to find?
  
  
• Is help available? Is it user-centered (versus tech-centered)?
  
  
• How many help channels do you provide? (e.g., email, FAQ, phone, live on the web)
  
  
• Are the smallest details, such as fonts and colors, chosen with an understanding of all of the above and a knowledge of what maximizes sales?
  
  
• Does the page delight visitors and inspire them to go deeper into the site? Does it actually guide them in doing so?

1. Lists get response

2. Curiosity is motivating

1. Test urgency messages to your offer pages on your web site.

2. Test urgency within your shopping cart pages and other site pages where you need to encourage immediate action.

3. Test urgency messages in the subject lines of your emails and newsletters.

4. Test urgency in your customer or subscriber welcome emails. Urgency can encourage new members to become more deeply engaged in your site more quickly.

5. Test urgency in shopping cart recovery emails to drive more purchasers back to their shopping carts.

6. Test urgency in subscriber recovery emails when subscriptions expire.

7. Test urgency in your press releases and other offline marketing.

8. Test urgency in your PPC and CPM advertising.

And keep in mind that implied urgency can work as hard for you as direct urgency.

• The urgency should be genuine and not simply created as a promotional gimmick. The growing sophistication of online audiences means that many people can and will recognize "manufactured urgency".


• Even the legitimate use of an urgent message will still be recognized as a promotional tactic. So if your message is not completely genuine and honest, you run a very real risk of losing the respect and loyalty of some of your readers.


• The use of urgency on an offer page can be a very powerful tool, but is not something you can do all the time. If you do, you will lose credibility.
  

  Therefore, when you are using the urgency tactic, take steps to maximize traffic to that page during the offer period. This may involve the use of promotional emails, offline PR, increased spending on PPC and whatever other traffic-building strategies work best for you

  
  


• Understand that you can use implied urgency as well as direct urgency.

·
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Get
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your site to your visitor fast! Minimize download times
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and don't bother with slow-loading graphics. If you can
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get your site to download in under 10 seconds, your
>

visitor is far less likely to bail and up goes your
>

conversion rate.
>

·
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Make
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your value proposition, or unique selling proposition
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really, really clear.
>

·
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Give
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your visitor immediate and powerful confirmation that
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they’re in the right place, that you have what they’re
>

looking for.
>

·
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Make
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sure your home page makes a crisp and professional
>

impression.
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·
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Design
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a site with super navigation that reflects an intuitive
>

buying process, superior content and delightfully clear
>

and simple checkout (with all the options, ma'am).
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Easy-to-use sites have much higher conversion rates.
>

·
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No
>

bugs. Test, test and then test again to make sure your
>

site is error-free. Folks simply won't tolerate your
>

inability to get it right. They'll vote by leaving and
>

never coming back. Watch that conversion rate drop.
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·
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Cater
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to the visitor who knows what she wants right now. Give
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your customers fewer clicks to complete a purchase and
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your conversion rate will rise. The power of a one-click
>

purchase is sublime.
>

·
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Evaluate
>

how folks buy on your site and then tailor your offers
>

to their preferences. You might find that people want
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bundled products rather than individual offerings, or
>

vice versa. Listen to your customers, and be willing to
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get creative.
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·
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Make
>

sure, before you go spending your advertising dollars,
>

that you invest in an excellent site. Don't do it
>

halfway, and don't design to please the designers or
>

programmers. Your customers reign. Keep 'em happy, and
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they'll have you jumping up and down with higher
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conversion rates.
>

Your site has many types of visitors. Very few commercial Web sites cater to
only one type of visitor with one set of demographic, psychographic, and
topographic characteristics.

The principle value of a persona-based message campaign is understanding each type of customer's approach to initiating relationships, gathering information, and approaching decision-making. Learn what type of language resonates with customers, what builds their confidence, how they prefer to obtain agreement and closure, and so on.





During the persona-creation process, the following data are collected and analyzed:




• Demographics. These are customer attributes, such as age, gender, income, and buying cycle.
  
  
  
  
• Pyschographics. What does the customer psychologically do in the buying process? Some data are determined by Web analytics, others information is extrapolated through customer interviews and product/service analysis.
  
  
  
  
• Topographics. Topographic information (the situation, the marketplace, and the market position) is a combination of demographics and pyschographics. It shows the relationship between them, and how they affect the buying process. It's a window into customers' divergent needs and motivations.

How do you get a user to that particular thing when you've got over a million pieces of content? "That's the question we want to answer," Jared explains.





Some of the patterns Jared has seen include:




• There were no differences among demographics or among levels of user experience.
  
  
  
  
• Users navigate by "pogo sticking," or jumping back and forth between a list of items and the individual product pages.
  
  
  
  
• Users could not correlate true download speeds with perception of speeds (it all has to do with how easily they could complete their tasks).
  
  
  
  
• One of the predictors of impending doom is the numbers of clicks it takes from the home page to finding the products desired.

• Amiable
  
  
  
  
  • Attitude: Personal, activity oriented.
    
    
    
  • Time: Undisciplined, fast paced.
    
    
    
  • Question: What is your best solution for the problem?
    
    
    
  • Approach: Address