Welcome!!!

Many times I visit large web sites belonging to large global businesses. And many times I see a friendly “Welcome to our site” right at the top of the page.

 

Just as often I immediately click away. Why?

 

Well, it’s not that “Welcome” isn’t friendly or anything like that. It’s just that it’s… well dare I say, boring.

 

What I want to see, very selfishly – perhaps like most of us – is a hook that’s going to grab my attention for a second or two and then leads on to explain what’s in it for me if I stay on the site.

 

Some of these sites, (I must admit not all by a long chalk), haven’t grasped the idea that people are interested in benefits and what those benefits would mean to them if they could have them.

 

When someone lands on a page of your site you literally have seconds to do three things: interrupt, engage and connect with your visitor.

 

Let’s look at the first of those three magic words. Number 1: interrupt, why interrupt? The fact is that most people today have crowded minds.

 

Crowded out with a whole list of things they have to do or think about that are all clamouring for their attention. That’s a lot of competition for you and your web site to deal with.

 

So if you don’t interrupt your visitor’s train of thought and get their interest then your visitor will be gone in the click of back button.

 

Assuming they stay because you’ve grabbed them this then leads onto ‘engage’ and ‘connect’ which I’ll look at next time.

 

Stay Tuned…