Reach Customers Online

Bogus URLs, Impulsive Copywriting

This afternoon I spent an hour talking with a client about how they want to fix up a site we relaunched this time last year. My experience is that clients get itchy about nine months to a year after relaunch, mostly because it takes time to experience the logical flaws of a website. In this case, in talking through the existing navigation links, it is obvious that several links should be combined. This will streamline their site and enable them to add missing information from their sales process, topics like financing and insurance. I believe they have one of the best sites for their industry (manufactured homes) but there is lots of room to improve.

Their update plans also seem like a good time to hook up ClickTracks for a month so that we get a baseline record of how their current site works. Specifically, to have a record of how often people click what links on their site. ClickTracks does this visually in a way that is fairly easy to setup and operate. So it’ll be $49 USD for one month now and another $49 USD for one month after relaunch and maybe every 4-6 months afterwards, to see how things go. Since they’re not a major league ecommerce site that has to know everything at all times, and their product can only be sold in person, this approach should work fine. Their site is set up to mimic their offline sales process and it is enough to find out where people drop out of that process online.

In researching ClickTracks, I did encounter one oddity: a testimonial on the ClickTracks site from Mike’s E-Commerce Software Tools. The money quote says, “I highly recommend you try ClickTracks to judge for yourself. It will be an eye opener.” I thought, cool, another good resource to pass along. Except the site is familiar. It’s some guy who appears to set up sites to drive traffic. He has very few reviews. Besides disappointment because I’m dying to find someone online who tests and reviews ecommerce tools (for free), I wonder if ClickTracks has bothered to read the guy’s About page.

One other point about my phone calls with this client. I realized that one problem that has eluded me so far with writing their website copy has magically solved itself. Another copywriter they’ve hired to write their print and radio ads wrote copy for the home page of one of their office subsites. It’s a beautiful job that highlights key copy points in an engaging narrative way.

Reading his copy I had a brain flash: what if I linked the key copy points, say hyperlink the phrase “gourmet kitchens” and have that lead to a page with gorgeous pictures and text all about their gourmet kitchens? Get people really excited with pictures of gourmet kitchens instead of just the phrase. I could include not only shots of their kitchens but also closeups of the ribbed glass cupboard doors, stoves, veneers, pendant lights, floor tiles, kitchen islands. Maybe toss in recipes. Maybe even link to my favorite site about food (Saute Wednesday). Let’s motivate their visitors, get them stoked.

Basically I could create a web of pages, a summary page up top with copy that links to sub pages that highlight each key copy point. All the copy points would be on every sub page, you just would emphasize with pictures and additional text the copy point for that page. I’ll have to try it. It would be a great way to satisfy people’s impulses for more information as they respond to the copy points.

I did notice, though, that the bottom of his page did not have a call to action. I’ll have to tell him.

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