Kethyr's CAMEL Report
Mountain View, California
Thursday, May 1, 2008

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All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.
— Robert Louis Stevenson

Whenever you sit down to write a Web page — whether it's a home page, a subscription page, a contact page, a sales page, or an information page — there are seven steps you can take to ensure that the words you use are as successful as they can be.

1. Define the purpose of the page.

This may sound obvious, but too few business owners or the people responsible for their marketing sit down and establish a clear, clean purpose for a Web page. All too often, Web pages are created as "content dumps." Someone decides he or she wants a page on some topic, a little background information is written and then content from an old brochure is added to fill out the page. Not a smart way to do it.

It's far better to sit down for 10 minutes and ask the simple question, "What is the primary purpose of this page?" Or, to put it another way, "What goal is this page trying to achieve?"

Is its purpose to…

• help people find a particular product or service page on your site?
• educate the reader and then direct him or her forward to one of your main category pages?
• invite participation?
• secure a subscription or registration?
• get a prospective client to call you for more information?
• pre-sell a product or service and then move the reader forward to a sales page?
• close a sale?

Write down the answer, in 10 words or less, and pin it to the wall in front of you. Now you know what your page needs to do.

2. Understand your audience

Who will be coming to this page? Kids? Retired people? Who are they? Where do they live? How much money do they have? And, broadly speaking, what is their interest in coming to your site? Are they there to learn? Are they looking for a product or service today?

Based on their even knowing about your site, you can get a pretty good idea about who is coming there and what their general interest is.

So here's the question: "Who are these people?" Write down your answer on that same sheet of paper. This is who you are writing to. If you want to make a connection and build rapport with someone, it helps to know as much about them as possible.

3. Get clarity on your visitors' expectations.

Now we are getting more granular. We want to know why these people are coming to this specific page of your Website. What do they want? What are they hoping for? What are their expectations?

This is where access to robust statistics showing the traffic and usage patterns of your Website becomes critical. There are clues and trails you can follow when trying to identify the specific purpose someone has in mind when coming to a page.

First, ask yourself where they came from. A link from the home page? If so, what did the link say? What is the exact wording? That link text will give you a very clear idea as to your page visitor's expectations. In fact, the link text will largely set that person's expectations.

The same is true of someone arriving via a search engine. To find your page, they typed a few words into the search engine's search field. What phrase did they use? Again, those words give you a strong clue as to the visitor's expectations.

Maybe they came via a link in an e-mail. What expectations did the e-mail build up and set? What was the promise?

It is vital to follow these trails and do your best to determine the visitor's expectations. You will always maximize the effectiveness of a Web page by getting as close as you can to matching those expectations.

Remember, those expectations are set immediately before the visitor arrives on the page. This means your headline and opening text has to be a direct and immediate match with what that person is hoping to find. Don't waste time or words. Match your reader's expectations immediately.

4. Get to the meat faster.

The Web is not the place to write clever introductory text. It's not the place to do some grand scene-setting.

Determine your reader's expectations and get to the "meat" of your message immediately. No meandering. No fluff. Just get out of the way and let them do what they came there to do.

That action might be to read an article. Or sign up for a newsletter. Or sign up for a workshop or class. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is that they want, give it to them immediately.

5. Write only as much as you need to.

Writing for the Web isn't like writing for other mediums. There's no set amount of space to fill as there is with a brochure or display advertisement. A Web page can have two lines of text or a thousand lines of text. There is no fixed length.

The tendency online is to write more than is really necessary. Don't do it. Go back to your notes, confirm what it is your visitor wants to do, and write only enough to enable them to meet their goal. Write enough to get the job done, but not a word more.

6. Tell people what to do.

Again, this sounds obvious. But there are a zillion pages online that are beautifully written, but then sag and sputter at the end. If your reader takes no action after reading the page, you've failed. You need them to do something.

Hopefully, if you have done a good writing job, the link they click will correspond exactly to the expectations they had before they arrived at your site.

For instance, before arriving at your page, they might have been thinking, "I need an insurance quote for my new business." The best outcome for you is when they click on a link on your page that says, "Get an insurance quote for your business."

It's only by securing an action that you succeed in matching your visitor's expectations.

7. Tell them the next step.

Some expectations are more complex. Maybe someone was thinking, "I'm considering seeking psychotherapy, but I don't know much about how it works or how to choose a therapist."

They then arrive on your page, which includes helpful information on the benefits of therapy, how it works, what to look for in a mental health professional, and how to select one that's right for their needs.

Good job so far. You have helped answer your reader's questions. But they aren't ready to schedule an appointment. So what's next?

Well, people who compare service providers are at different stages. Some are ready to schedule an appointment, while others are still early on in the research process. So how do you get them to take an action? You provide options.

For those who are early on in their search, offer a free downloadable guide to choosing the right professional to work with or a list of other resources to help them with their search. For those who are ready to make an appointment, provide a link to the contact or online scheduling page of your site.

Be aware of the options your readers might find attractive, and offer them.

The Place Where People DO Things

All of these points are focused on understanding the visitor and getting him or her to do something. That's what the Web is. It's a place where people DO things. You need to write accordingly.

Know your visitors and know what they want. Help them achieve their goals and your Website will achieve yours.

Yours in success,

Sean Eric Armstrong
Kethyr's CAMEL Report

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