On the Internet, people are looking for information on their terms, not hype on your terms.
Here are examples of some advice I’ve given to my clients to improve the content and usability of their websites.
“Make your purpose clear – immediately. Tell us who you are and what you are trying to do. You say your blog is for “smart people,” but if they’re so smart, they’re probably busy and need to be convinced why your blog is for them.”
“You need to add a lot more pages to your website. How easy is it for you to write about your business? Is it like sweating bullets or can you do more of it? I’m not asking for Shakespeare here, just information about commercial skillets!”
“Great business concept (I think), but you must explain clearly and quickly what your concept is. Do it on the first page, in the first paragraph.”
“Proofread your copy. I’ve corrected the first paragraph, but you have typos throughout the site.”
“Your shopping cart has a button that says “Shop More.” The problem is that it takes me to the item that I just added to the cart, not back to the store. And the item page doesn’t take me back to the store either.”
“You are part of a very competitive industry. Even some of my spam recently has offered business cards! A quick look at the search engines suggests that many people want free business cards. On the Internet, everybody wants (everything) to be free. Maybe you could write a web page about all the things they must consider when they get their own business cards, and how important it is to choose a professional!”
“I sympathize that you don’t want to mess things up, but you really need to be able to update your website whenever you want. A good modern website should be simple enough to update without any experience or special software. “