A couple of years back I experimented with writing some short guides to writing for the web, and then selling them for a few dollars each.
I never did sell many copies, but I think the guides are useful.
My plan B is to make them available free.
The ones I have uploaded so far are now on my Scribd page. More to follow soon.
I have been somewhat lazy with this blog recently, and resolve to do a lot better over the months to come.
For starters, you may want to catch up with the last three articles I have written for the Excess Voice newsletter. Each of them touches on topics relating to improving conversion rates on your key web site pages, including your home page.
Here they are:
1. Keep your Web Pages Simple
2. Four tips on writing a web site home page
3. The future belongs to the trusted few
They really do.
I have been involved with numerous tests in which we tested landing pages and offer pages with a single column and two or three columns.
Every time the single-column format wins.
Why? It isn’t much of a mystery. Using a single column helps control the eye-path of your readers. With one block of text, the reader is more likely to read from top to bottom, and absorb your sales message in the sequence you intended.
When your sales message is read from top to bottom in this way, it is going to significantly increase your chances of converting that reader to a customer or subscriber.
But when you add other columns, you are creating distractions. Your readers now have to make choices between one area of the page and another. Worst if all, a reader may be half way through reading your sales message and then be distracted by some visual element to the left or right of the sales text.
It is often tempting to add related or supporting materials in a separate column, but I would advise against it. If you have some great testimonials, for instance, don’t put them to one side, but include them within the main column of text. Make them an integral part of your sales message.
