Is your website copy style driving prospects away?

As small business marketing consultants with a specialty in Internet Marketing, we are often asked to analyze websites that are teetering at death's door. You know the kind of site I'm talking about: Very little traffic, few sales, and an ROI that gets uglier by the month.

The site owner is often completely at a loss for reasons why. "It looks beautiful", he says. And usually it does. So what is it that is causing his bounce rate (the number of visitors who leave a page) to be over 90% in about 4.5 seconds? Why is he experiencing such dismal conversion rates?

As is often the case in marketing, the answer lies in the copy more than anything else. In our experience, we've seen that many clients write online copy like they'd write an annual report. It's all about what a great company they are, how they've been around for so many years, yada yada. That's all fine at some point on your site, but on your Home Page, it's death.

If you have a huge bounce rate, it's often the copy that is the culprit. Incidentally, if you don't know what your bounce rate is, well, that's another problem all on its own (fortunately one you can solve easily.)

Your visitors, however, don't care about your company. They don't care that you've got nice graphics or pretty pictures. They don't care about your fancy Flash movie—in fact, most of them hate Flash! Sorry if that shocks you. All your visitors really care about is a solution to their problem. If you can't show them a viable solution—or allude to it very strongly—in the first few seconds they're on your site, they're out of there.

As soon as your copy says "we do this" or "our company does that," you've lost them. In fact, it's a good idea to never, ever use the word "we" in those critical first few paragraphs if you can possibly help it.

Instead, write from the viewpoint of the prospect. Put yourself into his shoes. Use the word "you" frequently. Write about his needs, his problems (agitate him a bit show that you understand his pain and frustration). Show that you understand why he is concerned and what drove him to your site to look for answers. Then, and only then, present your solutions.

"Welcome to Our Site" is not much of a headline.

Why? One, it doesn't say anything interesting that would capture your visitors, attention. Two, it says nothing about what solutions you can provide or what problems you can solve. Remember, you've got only 4 or 5 seconds at most. Why waste it on "welcome?" Instead, your headline should be an eyeball-grabbing, attention-sucking head that speaks instantly and clearly to the reason your visitors clicked on your URL.

Here's the head from one of my small business marketing websites:
So your website is screaming "Failure!!"
and you desperately need to generate
more traffic and more sales?

If you're thinking this is a direct response style head, you're right. It speaks immediately to the needs of the majority of our new clients who are suffering from lousy website traffic and sales. As a result, we experience excellent scores on page views, retention time on site, downloads and contact requests. Your site can do the same...or even better.

Look closely at your copy. Is it too much "we" and too little "you?" If so, hire online copy professionals to give you proven online copywriting techniques designed to keep visitors longer and attract them back more often.

Bill Quinn is a published author and Internet Marketing Consultant, copywriter and marketing specialist with over three decades of advertising experience online and off. His website is http://www.smallbusinessmarketingoc.com.