Web

Why? Most readers are in a big hurry. Long paragraphs look intimidating and hard to read. Short chunks of copy separated by white space immediately say "get this information fast."

Use the short paragraphs strategy for web copy, sales letters, and email messages.

Recently an editor of a major national magazine told me he favors articles with two and three sentence paragraphs. The look of the article is almost as important as what it is about.

Kevin Nunley provides marketing and copy writing. Read all his free tips at http://DrNunley.com Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com or (801)253-4536.

Get the Right Keywords

I read a lot of articles trashing search engine promotion. Still, when I look closely at where a client is getting most of their web site visitors, search engines are one of their best friends.

Tweaking your site for search engines is still one of the most effective ways to increase your web site hits. Search engines send people to your site when the user types a search word or phrase into the engine. If your site contains that word or phrase, your site is listed as one of the choices to visit.

Keywords can be tricky. Sites often discover that people don't search for them with the keywords they expected. Instead of searching for "sports equipment" they search for "football supplies." Rather than typing in "CPA" they type" bookkeeping help."

Think of all the different ways people describe what you do. Use the same words and phrases you hear many of your customers use.

Big companies buy access to a database of keywords supplied by search engines. You can get similar results with programs that check the effectiveness of your search terms.

Check out http://WebPositionGold.com/, AddWeb :
http://www.cyberspacehq.com/addweb/
and freeAgentWebRanking http://www.aadsoft.com /

Kevin Nunley provides marketing and copy writing. Read all his free tips at http://DrNunley.com Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com or (801)253-4536.

Fast Loading Pages

As browsers get more sophisticated and modems download faster, web sites are getting fancier. My old advice about "put a logo at the top of your web page" and keep the rest "text" is looking out-dated.

On the other hand, MANY of your web site visitors have slow phone lines with no improvement in the near future. With web design expectations higher but lines still slow, it puts many of us between a rock and a hard place.

Some ways to jazz up the look of your pages without making them slow loading:

1. Use one to three SMALL gif or jpeg graphics on a page, but don't go overboard. Try to repeat graphics when you can from one page to the next. Once a graphic has loaded into the visitor's computer, it doesn't have to load again.

2. Create an interesting page by formatting your text into headlines, bold, indented blocks, and limited colored text. You can also set off important points with small graphic balls or arrows. These don't take much time to load and can add interest to your page.

3. Put parts of your page in a cell and give it a different background from the rest of your page.

4. When you find a logo you like, email the owner and ask who created it. I find that many site owners create their logo themselves and don't mind making one for you at low cost.

Kevin Nunley provides marketing and copy writing. Read all his free tips at http://DrNunley.com Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com or (801)253-4536.

“But We Tried Everything!”

Occasionally I meet a business that has done a TON of marketing but still isn’t selling much. It isn’t that they haven’t tried. The list of marketing they attempted can be staggering.

If thousands and millions of prospects are learning about the product or service, why aren’t any of them buying?

Here are some common reasons even well-promoted products don’t sell.

There isn’t any real market for the product. It may seem like a great idea, but nobody wants it--at least, not yet.

Customers don’t think your business is qualified to sell the product. One man knew his medium-sized business could supply the needs of major customers, but they didn’t buy until his company grew into a big corporation. “We could have served them just as well before, but they wouldn’t buy because they thought we weren’t big enough.”

Your advertising isn’t targeted to the right market. This is probably the most common problem. A company markets with a media that reaches a mass audience (like TV or daily newspapers) but reaches too few of their customers who belong to a specific group.

Tightly targeted media don’t always reach the audience they claim to reach. Try running a test first to see if you get results before spending big bucks.

Kevin Nunley provides marketing and copy writing. Read all his free tips at http://DrNunley.com Reach Kevin at kevin@drnunley.com or (801)253-4536.