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| Two-Point Perspective. Write from the readers perspective on your website. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
As the use of websites to promote our brand and generate
leads intensifies too many of us fail a basic but critical test which
dramatically impact the performance of our sites.
You will know by now that Google wants everyone to focus on
content, yes, that’s the boring bit we have to produce which goes on those
lovely well designed web pages we've paid for. For most of us writing copy is
not something we do as a profession, but there is something simple we can do
which will help us connect with your audience even if we aren’t confident
about writing copy.
The most influential is the "I" "we"
"you" test. What does that mean? This is simply the number of times
you use the terms "I", "we", or "you" on a single page
of text. The ideal ratio is 1 "I" "we" to every 6
"you". Sadly for most web sites the ratio is the complete opposite.
Why is this important? As a visitor to a site I want to you to be writing from my perspective about
thing of interest or benefit to me and about things that might or should be
important to me. Its a basic marketing principle that you should always write from the prospective of the reader not the writer. The reason for this is simple when we write from our own perspective we get to focused on what is important to us, which in most cases is not what is important to the reader.
For example writing on your web site “we’ve been established for 25 years
and we offer the best in class widget, our quality makes us different” Well
lovely, but frankly I’m just not that bothered. However, if you wrote “As a user
of widgets you've probably found that the biggest problem is inconsistent quality.
So you’ll be looking for a supplier who can give you guarantees about the
performance of the widgets you need”. Well you know what; I’m interested.
The two short extracts are talking about the same thing but
from a completely different perspectives and it’s the latter which employs “you”
that speaks from a potential purchasers perspective which engages the reader, and
that is the perspective you must have to get the maximum performance from your
site.
Now then why don’t you nip over to your website and see how
you fair in the "I" "we" "you" test.
Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for High Growth Businesses, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business.
