Source: Nettuts+

This article aims to show you how to attract users and make them hungry for more. Who is this post for? Anyone with a website. Not all of the items listed below will apply directly to you and your business; however, they are, at the very least, an excellent source for inspiration.

1. Write Fresh and Catchy Content

If you have good content, people will always come back for more. One of the most important things about content is to keep it fresh and up-to-date. But, just like Smashing Magazine, make sure to archive your content for people to refer back to.

2. Listen to Your Community

If you are already lucky enough to have a community—even just some regular users—listen to them. You can do this by emailing your users directly, setting up comment forms, live chat, or even user feedback systems such as UserVoice, which allow users to vote on site issues and functionality. By listening to your community, you can determine exactly what they want.

3. Monitor How Your Site is Used

Knowing how users use your site is vital. This allows you to target their needs better. The best way is to keep a close eye on your analytics data; check what country/area your users are coming from, what search terms are working well for you and what sites are giving you the best referrals.

Find out how users navigate your site via heat maps. These help you alter your site so that it is easier for your visitors to use and find what they want. This keeps your users happy and more likely to return.

Read the rest of the article at Nettuts+

We spoke about how people seem to have the attention span of a Gnat these days in the post titled The Attention Span Of A Gnat…How To Overcome It.

But that isn’t really a fair indictment on all people (including me) who might resent being associated with a Gnat. What really happens is that we get so many messages on a daily basis that it becomes impossible to view them all and we become very precious with our time. Hence we scan, we skim and we try to sort the “wheat from the chaff” as quickly as we can.

If something doesn’t jump out at us as being of importance…we move on very quickly. Hence the Gnat story.

So how do we attract attention and break through the clutter to get our message to more people?

AICDA – The Copy Writers Magic Formula

A good sales pitch, whether in person, print, website, letter, email, TV, video, radio… wherever, needs to do 5 things.

It must attract Attention, be Interesting, have Credibility, create Desire and prompt an Action …. AICDA.

Attention
On a web page or direct mail letter, that is what the headline does. On the radio its the load opening noise, sound or music that breaks the listens thoughts to get attention. Without attention, all is lost. The reader will not go deeper into the message to get to the heart of the sales pitch.

On your website, your landing pages are your key attention grabbers and must induce the reader to click through to another page or take some action such as signing up to receive a report or a newsletter subscription. Ideally the outcome is someone putting their hand up and saying “Hey, I’m interested…”. But be patient. Build a relationship. Digital marketing allows you to walk steadily to this point over time with minimal effort on your part.

Interest
Once you have their attention, you must give something that arouses interest. This could be many different things; a fantastic price, an offer of something free or a hint of an opportunity that will be revealed further on in the copy…an incentive to keep going.

Credibility
Creating credibility is very important; a must. Provide testimonials, a case study or some reputable statistics that PROVE that what you are talking about is the truth. Third party testimonials will always be seen as carrying greater weight of course because of the perceived independence.

Desire
You must make the reader desire or want what you are offering. It could be a product or service that you want the prospect to desire or want to buy. You can achieve this by appealing to emotions, hint at how a problem will be solved or how life will be made better.

Action
The reader must be prompted, urged, asked and convinced to take action. It is amazing how many otherwise fine sales pitches fumble at this crucial point. If you don’t give a prospect a reason to act, clear instructions on how to act and even ask them to act, they probably won’t.

One of the best ways is to put a strict time limit on your offer. Make them understand that they must act quickly to get your good deal, or lose out for ever.

AICDA And Digital Marketing
How did you find this article? Did you click on a link from an email marketing piece? Was it a link from another website page? Did it appear in a Google search and you clicked on the link?

All of these sources used the principles of getting your Attention and building Interest to the point where you wanted to read more. There is nothing really new here, but it is pitched in a slightly different way towards how to improve your digital marketing…your website, emails, social media; so you can produce better outcomes.

It is a fact that to achieve the full objective requires more words. And in this respect Long Copy out-sells Short Copy. So the big learning here is how to achieve the out comes of Long Copy but recognising that you must overcome the short attention spans that we all seem to suffer from these days.

Our objective here is to get you thinking and looking at how you could improve the results and hence you return on investment (ROI) form your digital marketing. When you need help, contact us who can show you how to implement these strategies into your business.

Source: X2 World

Give your business a powerful competitive advantage which can shoot you up the search rankings and achieve more leads than your non-blogging competitors.

When suggesting a Blog to clients we usually get asked “What exactly is a blog?”, which gets followed by, “I don’t have time to play around with one of those” or “Where would I get the time and what would I write about?”

The first stop in deciding to create a company blog (after understanding exactly what it is of course) is to decide that it is a worthwhile strategy and that means understanding the WIIFM (what’s in it for me?). What’s the pay-off?

What Is A Blog?
Simply, it is just a tool that allows you to quickly and easily create and publish new content. Plus, it allows readers to leave feedback on that content and interact with the feedback from other readers.

We have talked about Web 2.0 in the past Newsletter articles which, incidently can be found on our Blog at X2 World Blog, and a Blog is a Web 2.0 strategy. The 2.0 is just about the ability to engage and interact with people, compared with the original web concept which was an online brochure…you have moved on haven’t you?

The Pay-Off

1. Google Search – Google, in fact all search engines, places more emphasis on websites that have a growing and relevant content. Therefore you have a better chance of getting more web visitors if you add more content to your website…that is what a blog does.

2. Create Better Relationships – People do business with people they know and trust. A blog is a great way to achieve those outcomes on the web. Let people get to know you and your company. Offer value and people will return regularly. Over time, more and more people will contact you and become a lead or prospect. Then you have a chance of doing business with them.

3. Increased Online Lead Generation – businesses that have a blog and regularly publish new content will generate more new business leads than businesses that don’t blog. But don’t take my word for it, the following research by HubSpot shows an 88% and 67% increase in new leads for company’s that have a Blog.

The good news is that the statistics show that lead generation is substantially higher for both B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) company’s, making it a universal best practice strategy for internet or web marketing.

4. Improved Search Engine Results – The search engines apply ratings to websites and they favour certain elements over others. If your website can have more of the favourable elements, then it stands a better chance of appearing on the coveted “Page 1 of Google”. A blog helps in 2 key areas:

That’s a massive benefit! A website that is rarely ever updated and has no new content being added gives no reason for any search engines to come back and index pages. Your competitors who do Blog will get an advantage in the search rankings.

Another big factor in search engine rankings is links from other websites and blogs to your website. As the above chart shows, businesses that blog get much higher results.

What’s The Point Again?

Marketing is a science. It is measurable and you can try things, find out what works, tweak, improve and do more of what gets results.

The charts above from HubSpot’s research provide compelling evidence that you should be thinking seriously about a Blog for your business. If you have one, then think about how you can improve it and get better results.

It should be integrated with your website so that it adds value to your web domain name and in some cases could be a standalone website.

Why not get in touch with us and find out how your marketing could be boosted by adding a Blog or improving your current Blog?

One of our professional digital marketing Partners would love to talk you through the process and identify how it would work for your particular business.

Source: X2 World