Do vicious tactics work? You tell me. Are you still reading?

“Go For the Throat Sales Tactics”  emits a more vivid scene than “effective copy techniques” don’t you think?  And that’s what it’s all about.

I’ve been browsing Jakob Nielsen’s  Alertbox – it’s hands down the best stuff out there on how to get and keep your reader’s attention. Jakob is a researcher not a copywriter, not another internet marketer, not a sales guy at all. He focuses on observing how people act and modifying web pages to accommodate.

So what can you learn from him?

People only read 18% of what you write on average.

Text ads far outsell banner ads - they actively seek out text ads

Active text blows away passive text

And so much more. He’s been doing this for over 10 years and  I have yet to get a “sales email” from him. Does he ever sell stuff? Oh yeah. Jakob has some books you can buy and he also holds conferences all over the world. I haven’t checked but I bet attending one would set you back  a bundle.

The bottom line you should pay attention to guys like him. He’ll put more money in your pocket than a circus full of “gurus”.

By the way – most everything Nielsen reveals applies to copywriting as well as it does to content marketing as it does to web design.

You can find a list of his articles here.  Sign up for his newsletter too. Just like my blog  alerts – you won’t get a bunch of hyped up ads from him. Actually, your more likely to get a “salesy email” from me than from Nielsen – and I don’t do that very often at all… as most of  you know.

God bless,

Andy

P.S. Notice how his site isn’t what you might call “pretty”?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

No, I haven’t been hiding under one but it’s been a busy time.

My wife and I have decided to sell our house so I’ve been working like a madman getting it ready. With that and trying to keep clients happy, I’ve barely been able to keep up.

More on selling our house in a future post – nothing has been written in stone yet.

So what else is new?

I’ve had canniptions  testing for one client in particular.  This one is a total web site re-design… something I normally run from. I’m not doing the design work per se but we’ve been testing pages with and without headers and that’s where we’ve run into trouble…

Let me tell you – if you’re going to purchase design services make sure the site works with and without a graphic header!  I’ve never had a problem like this come up but basically this site was designed so you can’t simple pop off the header or pop on a new one. One has to do some major fudging to do this.

In my “graphically challenged” opinion – this just doesn’t work. Sorry but too many of us testers are finding out some markets simply buy more with less “eye-candy” so I will look for those design factors from now on.

What other considerations should one consider?

First, keep in mind, I am NOT an expert here. My thingy is copy not “pretty”. On the other hand I’m not convinced an ugly site with good copy will outsell a pleasant-looking one either.  That said there are a few things I like to see…

Clean pages with good colors. Don’t get gaudy on me.

What happens when you want to test the name of a product or a slogan? Is it going to be easy or difficult?

No Clutter. I’m not partial to pages with a gadzillion thingys going on all at once.

A strong message. When I land on your page I’d like to know what you’ve got to offer.

Does this mean there’s not room for portal pages or other general-type sites with lots to offer?

I think there’s plenty of room for those types of pages. I just don’t want to be overwhelmed.

What about You?

When you go searching for something – do you want to be bombarded with everything up to and including the kitchen sink?

Do you prefer lots of “action” on the pages you visit?

I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say on this.

Meanwhile, I’ve got house to work on…

God bless,

Andy

Bookmark It

Hide Sites