The Holy Grail of Website Design

Search Engine Optimization has become the holy grail of website design. There are an endless number of articles available on the Web, citing numerous tips and tricks on how to maximize your search engine profile. I find this never-ending game of catch-up with search engine programmers to be a futile exercise as it often leads to the corruption of your website content.

There is no argument that driving traffic to your website is critical and as such SEO is important. What is as important and I would argue, more important, is delivering your marketing message to those prospects that come to your site. Attracting thousands of visitors who really aren't interested in what you have to offer is counter-productive if attracting those visitors cost you money or has caused you to bury your core value proposition.

An Alternative Multi-layered Website Design Strategy

There is an alternative multi-layered website design strategy that will deliver your content in a variety of ways meeting the needs of a Web-audience with varying degrees of attention and interest, while at the same time remaining search-engine friendly and compatible with most commonly employed SEO practices.

The core objective, stated or unstated, of business websites is to deliver your marketing message in an easy-to-find, understandable, memorable way that compels your prospect to answer your call to action. With these goals in mind we can construct an effective information architecture that presents your content in a way that converts prospects into customers.

Finding What You Want Fast - Bulleted Points

As I have often preached, Web-visitors judge the quality of your website by the ease with which they are able to find the information they came to find. I have also repeatedly reminded anyone who listens that Web-audiences just don't have the time, patience or inclination to read most Web-copy.

These factors make it clear that when constructing the written portion of your website, you should make sure you make ample use of

1. bulleted points

2. numbered lists

3. headlines and subheads, and

4. captions.

Understanding What You Need to Know - Extensive Articles

There is a caveat to this elemental approach to presentation, and that is you cannot rely only on point-form presentation to communicate sophisticated ideas; you must add supplemental information for those who need and want all the details, and for search engines that seek-out and index fertile keyword-laden content.

The point-form style is designed to give Web-visitors a quick overview of who you are and what you do; it tells them they are where they need to be to solve their problem, and it provides them with the basic information they need to retain their attention. But if you want to close the deal - turn prospects into customers - you need to give your audience more. Link your bulleted items to extended content presented in article format. These informative articles should be easy to read and comprehend. Leave out the sales hype and concentrate on the values you offer that benefits your potential clients.

Anecdotes & Name Dropping Gets Noticed

When you write these articles, or have them written for you by a professional, make liberal use of anecdotes and name-dropping. These stories and references will get indexed by search engines and Web-users will find your content serendipitously.

One of my favorite stories about the lack of communication, one that I used in an article entitled, "The Brand Story - A Tale Worth Telling," was taken from a great book, "Information Anxiety," written by Richard Saul Wurman, who retells the anecdote of a woman seeking a divorce from her husband as told by U.S. Representative Pat Swindall of Georgia. Much to my surprise when I checked the logs for people reading my article, I found many discovered it accidentally by searching for the congressman. This phenomenon was repeated in other articles, whenever I discussed audio voice characteristics using examples of popular personalities like Chris Rock, Dennis Leary, and Sidney Greenstreet, or when I discussed the Web as a conversation environment as presented by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searle, and David Weinberger in their provocative book, "The Cluetrain Manifesto."

In the above paragraph alone I've made reference to nine personalities, two well- know books, and an article of my own, all of which will get indexed by the search engines and get found by someone, thereby driving traffic to my content.

Getting Heard Means Making An Impression

So now that you have constructed a website that gives visitors the information they need quickly and easily; and we have supplemented that initial content with detailed keyword-laden articles filled with reader-friendly stories and search-engine friendly references; we are ready to add the final touch - the compelling deliver of your marketing message.

What Makes Your Marketing Message Compelling?

As much as we would like to believe we are rational beings making decisions strictly on logic, argument, and evidence - it is just not the case. We buy things from people we like, not necessarily from people providing the best solution, and we purchase products and services we want, not necessarily things we need.

As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in his best selling book, "The Tipping Point," the doctors who get sued for malpractice are not necessarily the lousy doctors, but the doctors who don't spend enough time talking to their patients. What we learn from this is that we cannot ignore the human factor in making a marketing message compelling, and the best way I know to humanize your website is with the sound of the human voice.

A professionally delivered audio message delivered by an appropriate signature voice not only delivers your message in a compelling, easy to comprehend manner, but it also embeds that message in your prospects mind.

Getting What You Really Want

We all want more traffic to our websites, but in the process of attracting that traffic, we cannot forget our more profound goal: more customers, more sales, more revenue, and we cannot achieve that goal unless we deliver a meaningful, memorable message that turns prospects into customers.