What do people
expect from your website?
Does Anyone Read Articles
Anymore? Do they read all the information on your website pages?
I have written countless
articles and posted years of information on our website to help
our customers as well as attract new customers.
But are people really
reading those articles?
Or, are people today
expecting more graphics and video than text?
It seems like the
answer is that people would rather watch a video than read an
article.
So when you build your website
to attract new customers you will need a diverse set of of pages
with a good multimedia presentation. That means you need to work
harder and do more so your customers don't have to think as much.
I don't know if people today
are just lazy or they are less educated and none of that matters,
because that is the way people are and if you want to be in
business you have to give them what they want.
They want you to do the work
for them and entertain them rather than educating them.
Now, I can tell you that
every new person that signs up on pageBuzz.com asks the same
question, "what should I put on my website?"
And every time I answer
the question with another question, "what do you
want your customers to see?"
Nobody else can know what you
want to tell people about your own business. What image you want
to project, what you want your brand to mean. That is all part of
doing business and each business is unique.
But what I can tell you is
that writing 100 words on the home page starting with "Welcome
to my Website" is not going to do the job. Not only is
your 2 sentence homepage not interesting enough to satisfy anyone,
it is also just text that people tend not to read.
To really get
anyone's interest, you need graphics and videos.
I don't mean a dazzling
website design, I mean multimedia content about your business.
Having a fancy titlespace or
header graphic is not what people expect to see on your website.
They want to see:
demonstrations of the
products
video explanations of
what you do
diagrams explaining
work flows and product use
Telling someone that your
product is great and that they should buy it just does not cut it
in 2014 like it did back in 1994. Twenty years later customers
are more sophisticated, expect to see better graphics, better
explanations and the presentation needs to stimulate them with
more than just plain text.
You need video, audio and
colorful graphics. But let me show you rather than try to explain
it all in this text only article.
You tell me, which
image below is more engaging?
Image #1
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Image #2
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If you said the
one with just text you are either trying to convince yourself
that your website is great or you are just stuck in the 1970's.
Either way, you would be wrong. But if you said, the one with the
colorful graphics then you already know what you need on your
website.
You need more than just text.
You have to add images with text, images with other images and a
colorful meaningful flow of the content.
Maybe you are just a plumber,
an electrition or run a small retail store. You never expected to
have to create multimedia presentations to run your business, but
today you have to do just that.
Nobody ever expected every
person to have their own computer let alone their cell phone
being a computer. But things change and technology grows, to stay
in business you have to grow with it, lean how to use it and be
part of it.
If you cell phone still has a
rotary dial on it you might be a little behind the times.
And if you think you can open
a website and type in your name and phone number with a short
paragraph about what you do and get customers from it, you are
way behind the times.
Let take a look at what we did
with our website for 2014 compared to what we had in 2004. We
added video, special effects, slide shows and thousands of extra
pages. And they are not just a pile of junk, we spend countless
hours building these things like our introduction video.
pageBuzz
Introduction Video
When we created the
introduction video for pageBuzz.com we spent about 2 weeks
creating it. We added a colorful moving background, interactive
keyed elements arriving on cue like the bee driving a truck into
the screen pulling a huge white board with a video presentation.
Or the rush of bees driving, cars, motorcycles and even a
mobility scooter when I mention reaching customers on the go. All
of these elements add up to a great presentation that keeps
viewers interested.
Of course, the animations were
made separately from filming myself, so it took quite a bit of
time to sync up the images with the narration and the video that
was shot live.
Being able to do all of this
ourselves saved us a lot of cash, but it took a huge amount of
time and effort as well as requiring extensive video equipment,
studio space and software. But we understand all too well how
important it is to keep people engaged and interested. To give
people more and entertain them as well as selling to them.
People will watch
the Super bowl every year just to see the TV Commercials,
because they are the best of the best, the most entertaining
and the most creative. That is what people expect! All the
time.
While it might seem like
enough to hold up the iphone and shoot yourself, it does not have
the same impact as a video with animation in the background,
colorful images and a presentation that looks like you made some
effort.
So while we could have stopped
at a basic narration of how great pageBuzz is and that alone
would be much better than just a static page on the front of our
website. We took it up a level or two and shot the video on a
green screen and added the actual website as the background.
Then we added animations that
would keep viewers looking for more and not getting lost in the
monotone speech selling our services. This vidcap below shows one
of our Bees driving a pickup truck pulling a huge white board
where we then play a video presentation about our system matching
the narration.
Of course we could have just
played the presentation and added a voice over to it, but this
way is so much more entertaining and will keep people watching,
laughing and entertained
In closing the video, I talk
about how I made all these videos and in the background you see
two bees making a video with one dressed up as me to imply that I
am actually not human but just a Bee dressed up as a man.
All of these subtle effects
and images contribute to the overall effectiveness of the video
and the video contributes to the overall effectiveness of the
website.
In 1997 we could put
up a simple page and get customers.
In 2004, it took a bit
more effort, some gif animations and great graphics.
In 2010, you needed a
website and you had to have a facebook page, twitter page
and then mine the social networks for customers.
In 2014 you need all
of that and more.
Today you need
better graphics, better video, better text and better marketing.
The number of people competing
today is 100 times what it was back just ten years ago. In order
to compete you need to up your game. You need to do a lot more
than just type one paragraph of text in a page and wait for
customers to show up.
That does not mean that you
cannot build your own website, it just mens you can't expect to
have a good website in 15 minutes or less. It means that using
some stock template and changing the title to the name of your
business is not going to get you anything. That spending a few
hours on a website and expecting it to compete with people that
spent hundreds of hours is just foolish.
Your competition is fierce.
They are using every trick, every resource, hiring designers,
videographers and web experts. So if you want to compete, it will
take more than a few minutes of your time. It will take a real
effort on your part and that does not mean sitting a staring at
the website for 10 hours wasting time wondering what to do.
If you want your website to
work in todays market, you need to give customers what they
expect.
You need to elevate your
content and provide customers with amazing presentations online.
When I was in school the idea
of writing a 10 page term paper was overwhelming and the concept
of writing a book that was 100 pages or more was just beyond what
I could ever image. But now I have written the equivilent of
hundreds of 100 page books, created hundreds of videos, thousands
of graphic images all while building and running my own business.
And people tell me, "OH,
but that is what you do for a living, so it is easy for you".
But that could not be further from the truth, because I went to
school for engineering and now I write software code. I write all
the programs that make up pageBuzz and run the network of servers
that keep it all moving.
I had
to learn how to build pages, to sell my product, to keep people
interested in what I had to offer. Just like
you will need to do to have your business online.
Yes, I am pretty good at it
now, but not near the level of most professional designers. That
does not mean I don't have to compete with them, because I have
to compete with them every single day.
When I sit back and realize
what I have built and how extensive it all is, I am amazed even
myself. But it is the result of decades of work, 100+ work weeks
and an amazing amount of learning. I did not build it overnight
and neither will you build something amazing overnight.
I look at what other
people do, and I am amazed at how little effort they put into it.
How little they do and how much they expect back out of it.
If you want to get rich, or
just make money online, it is going to take more than 15 minutes.
Your website has to compete
with people like me, who have spent tens of thousands of man
hours on their websites. Or people that can hire professionals
and pay $100,000 for a basic website. Companies that hire teams
of developers, marketing experts and advertising teams.
To do that, you need to spend
more time, add more content and multimedia like videos and
graphics that will separate you from the rest of the websites out
there. Presentations that don't put people to sleep.
As I always say, if
you don't, something better is just one click away!
If your website is not good
enough to keep people interested or offers something that others
don't then you just can't expect to get any customers online.
You have to understand that 80%
of new customers acquisitions involve some type of online
resource. Knowing that, you have to realize, you just can't
ignore being online and more importantly, you can't ignore the
importance of what that online presence looks like.
You have to be mindful of what
people are saying, what you are saying on the pages and how you
present all of your content.
So while you might be very
proud of yourself for making some animated graphic like this:
Other people might not be so
impressed when they want answers to questions about what you do,
how much you charge, why you are better and what you offer. They
will not be entertained with 1990 style animations or cheesy
graphics.
You need to come in from the
past and elevate your website to what people expect today.
In 2014 people expect clean,
informational presentations set out in a manner that is
interesting as well as educational. That takes effort, time and
hard work. But if you want to compete in todays market, you
cannot avoid what people expect from you. Even if you don't like
it, it does not make it go away.
This whole concept
reminds me of a teacher I had in High school. Last class of
the day, everyone was just waiting to go home. 4 out of 5
days the teacher showed us a 30 minute slide projector
presentation with a recorded audio track. By the end of the
class, at least 4 or 5 students were sleeping. It was really
hard to stay awake, because it was just so boring.
But eventually when
the teacher fell asleep in the middle of clicking the slides
and we all were asking each other if he was dead or we should
try to wake him up. Then I realized, this is just boring us
to sleep. Not just me, even the teacher.
Today I can't even remember
what the class was even about, just that it made everyone fall
asleep.
If your website is boring, not
fun and friendly, then you will put people to sleep and they will
never remember what you had, what you sell or anything else about
you.
So don't be boring. Don't be
lazy and put together a presentation that is eye opening and fun.
Add some video, graphics and information that excite people and
keep them awake and interested. Make the extra effort, go the
extra mile.
It is very easy to make
something that sucks, but quite a bit harder to make something of
quality.
If you want to have a business
5 or 10 years from now, you better get with the program now or
you may not have anything down the road.
Take a good look at
your website and try to improve it, make it better and make it
competitive. Every little extra effort you make will be noticed
by your customers.
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