Sales says:  “There’s a LOT of copy on the website.  I’d rather have less copy and drive visitors to Contact Us to learn more.”

Although Sales/Biz Dev might want the entire focus of the website to be on driving leads (and so, may believe there is “too much copy” on the website for lead generation), the website has to meet the needs of your entire audience.

And if you’re selling by ecommerce, your copy has to answer all of the questions your potential customers might have.

Each of your visitors can be in different buying stages.  At any point in time, visitors to your website include:

  • “A” leads  – those visitors ready to buy or talk to a salesperson today, but always the smallest group.
  • “B” leads — those actively looking for a solution, but may not want to talk to a salesperson or be ready to buy today.  They’re looking to see what’s out there, and trying to narrow down their potential vendor list.  If this audience doesn’t get their questions answered on your website, they’ll probably just move on to your competitors’ websites.  It’s too early in the process for them to want to take the time to talk to a particular company — they’re still researching options.
  • “C” leads — the “sightseers.”  These visitors may want to learn more, but aren’t actively searching for a solution today.  Similar to “B” leads, they won’t bother contacting you if they have questions.

To capture contact information from the widest group of visitors, you need Lead Generation Offers that meet visitor needs at their various buying stages.

o   Those just starting their research want to learn more, they want to be educated.  So offer them something that will help them learn more — like a special report or white paper or comparison report or case study(ies) in their industry.  Or for consumers, access to a video or special online tool.

o   These visitors want to know what your solution can do – so they can decide whether to put your company on the potential vendor list or not.

o  If you’re selling B2B, there may be multiple decision-makers.  Each decision-maker may be looking for different things in your solution.  (And there may be multiple types and levels of visitors to your website from the same company.)

o   Some visitors may come with a specific list of requirements that they’re looking for — if you don’t have enough detail, it’s too easy for them to just go on to a competitor’s site.

Think that won’t happen?  What do you do on an e-commerce site when you can’t find details on a particular product being sold?  Don’t you just go search for another website?  There’s almost always another website selling a similar product — with a more complete explanation.

So “all that copy” is there to answer questions, to provide specifics — because SPECIFICS SELL.  And it’s there to meet the needs of the range of visitors coming to your website.

How to Make “All That Copy” Not Look Like A Lot of Copy

To make your copy more inviting, you can:

  1.  Visually break up the copy— using numbered points and bullets.
  2. Use specific subheads throughout to outline your key points.  Specifics sell!  And subheads help the scanning reader and can help your SEO.
  3. Use on-page tabs to organize the content (common on ecommerce product pages).  Visitors can click to open additional tabs if needed — but only the content in the first tab is visible by default.  And ALL of the content behind the tabs is visible to search engines.
  4. Break up the copy into multiple pages, blog posts, or content marketing Offers.

You want your copy to look inviting — so use short paragraphs that look easy to get through.  And use short, conversational sentences — the way you’d say it out loud — to make your copy easy to read.

Every word should be there for a reason.  So edit ruthlessly!  If you can remove copy and not affect your ability to get the sale, then the copy doesn’t need to be there.  (But if it needs to be there, it’s not “too much copy.”)

You might also consider adding a video sales message (but be sure to include a transcript – both for SEO purposes, and for those that don’t want to sit through the video to get the message).

How have you handled the “how much copy do we need” issue on your website?

 

The Results Obsession Amazon BestsellerSummarized from our new BEST-SELLING book now available on Amazon, “The Results Obsession: ROI-Focused Digital Strategies to Transform Your Marketing.”

Learn more about The Results Obsession book, see the Table of Contents, and download some chapter excerpts.

The Results Obsession includes 4 chapters on improving your website (including Navigation, Content, Copy, and SEO), and 3 additional chapters on Copy Strategy, Writing Headlines and Subheads, and Writing the Best Copy of Your Life.