Website to Wonderful, 4: Creating easy paths for prospects
Fasten up, this is a long post on the subject of emotional landscaping. First: how exactly do you turn a prospective customer into a paying one? And down below, my take on how it works for all you good people selling coaching and counselling as opposed to widgets. You can find previous posts in the series here: Website to Wonderful, 1: Makeover Edition (Introduction) Website to Wonderful, 2: How not to make your visitors’ eyeballs bleed Website to Wonderful, 3: Designing your site with real users in mind If you like it, tweet it, bookmark it, share it with your friends. If the...
Read MoreWebsite to Wonderful, 3: Designing your site with real users in mind
Yes, it’s time to talk about what user experience types grandly refer to as ‘user journeys’. The word ‘journey’ does sound somewhat major, but don’t get caught out: some of those journeys are the pixellated exquivalent of popping to the corner shop for a pint of milk, rather than crossing the Andes by hovercraft. As site owners, we mostly try to steer people towards the Grand Journeys that we want to promote and we utterly neglect the small everyday journeys that are also important. A good website will handle all of the journeys, more or less...
Read MoreHow to create rich product information, in five simple steps
I’ve been trawling Etsy, the handmade craft website, in search of nice stuff for a friend’s new baby, and I noticed a real variation between the mini-boutiques. Some I’d be happy to buy from straight away, no question. Others are sending lots of worrying little signals that the product or the service simply aren’t going to be up to much. There are a million and one reasons why a physical product may not sell well online. A lot of these (like current trends and your competition) are well outside your control. The one that is firmly in your control is the way...
Read MoreHow to interview a customer (properly)
Ah, I know what you’re thinking. D’oh! Hah! Easy! Just go ahead and ask them the questions! WRONG! 99% of people asked their opinion out of the blue stammered, blushed and then lied. It’s a highly awkward social situation, and it goes roughly like this: MARKETER: (brightly) ‘So, what do you think of our shop?’ CUSTOMER: (caught like a deer in the headlights) ‘I er what? Hm. I er. It’s ok. It’s errrm, very nice really.’ MARKETER: (writes stuff down in big notebook, is triumphant) ‘They really like it. They think it’s...
Read MoreDoes your survey reflect reality, or is it just wishful thinking?: Lessons from the Mirror of Erised
One of my favourite devices in the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, is the Mirror of Erised. Harry comes upon this old mirror one day, and when he looks into its depths, he sees his (dead) parents standing behind him. His friend Ron sees himself winning at Quidditch. The mirror, it is explained, distorts: it shows the viewer their heart’s desire rather than ordinary reality. (Incidentally, Harry nearly wastes away gazing into this mirror, hungry for the vision it shows him. But that’s by the by). Only the perfectly happy person...
Read MoreManifesto
Some of us find it quite simple to put our real organisations and authentic selves online.
Others - well, let's just say that some of us can't bear to look at our own websites.
My mission is to help you transform your online presence so that other people understand and appreciate what you really have to offer. So that you can achieve what you want - whether that's better engagement, more readers, or more sales.