Does your website increase confusion or does it reduce confusion.

Remember confused people do not buy; they go looking for more information.

Your job is to give them that information, or at least enough information to give them the confidence to buy your product. You must convince your customers that your product will solve their problem.

You do this by providing factual, focused web content and web copy. Whats the difference between web content and web copy?

Web copy is the sales pitch, while web content educates or entertains your customer. That doesnt mean that your web copy cant or shouldnt educate your customer, just that web content shouldnt be a pure sales pitch.

A great example of this is a white paper. A white paper provides your customers with the information to understand what is needed.

They need to understand how your product benefits them, how it solves their problem. Your white paper may even identify a problem they didnt know existed.

If your white paper has identified a need, your web copy can make an emotional appeal for the sale.

Another example of this is a targeted marketing article published on your website. Where a white paper may tackle a complete subject and take several pages, articles cover a specific piece of the subject.

Breaking the subject into segments allows you to fully exploit each angle of the story, keeping your customers attention while doing so. Short focused articles are perfect for the short attention spans of our web patrons.

Some of the benefits of articles and white papers are:

• When posted online they can help drive traffic to your website.
• Help establish your expertise.
• Educate your customers.
• They keep on working long after you post them.

Say you have a white paper explaining how your product works and how it solved a problem for a previous customer. By the end of the paper the reader should be able to say I have the same problem. If it worked for that person, it should work for me!

The saying People buy on emotion, and then justify with logic is true. However, logic can be used to prime the emotional pump.

White papers and articles are great tools for this! Show them they have a problem, and then show them how to fix it.

Since you included a link to your landing page, the customer can go directly to your product without going to the home page.

You did include a link, didnt you?

How many times have you wanted to look at a product, but couldnt find it after you arrived at the companys home page.

Dont do this to your customers, take them where they need to go, and then ask for the sale. Yes, ask them for the sale!

Tell them what you want them to do, and theyll do it.

1. Use logic to identity a problem.
2. Then emotionally build on your customers need for your product or service.
3. Finally, ask for the sale.

Get all of the sales you deserve!

Rick Parrott

Rick Parrott is a Microsoft Certified Professional, and a COMPTIA A+ and Network + Certified Professional with over ten years of Information Technology experience.

Working for several large American insurance corporations and the US Government has given him the opportunity to learn from the best.

Besides working in the Information Technology field, he has taught for vocational schools and the City of San Antonio Adult Literacy program as a network/computer instructor.

Prior to entering the computer field Rick Parrott managed businesses that grossed almost a million dollars a year.

Rick Parrott graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1994, the same year he left the US Air Force for the civilian sector.

During his Air Force service he worked on C-130 aircraft as a Hydraulic Mechanic and for seven years as an Air Traffic Controller.

Rick Parrott is currently married and lives in San Antonio Texas.