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Content FAQs

How do I convert a website visitor into my customer?

By engaging that visitor in your story, then by helping him or her to see the benefits of a relationship with you and finally by having a means of response that meets the visitor's needs.

Conversion guidelines are simple. First, provide an adequate amount of content to satisfy the visitor (err on the side of more not less). Make sure you do NOT leave out important information - you're NOT writing a newspaper classified ad. Second, keep the content fresh. Visitors are more likely to become customers on return visits, but if you're content is out of date, you'll lose that opportunity. Third, don't ask more from the visitor than you can deliver. In other words, do NOT overreach when asking for information. At the very least you want to begin a dialog, which, in most cases, does not require that you know sensitive personal data.

How do you define Website Content?

Anything that can impart information to the visitor and help tell your story. Content includes: text, images (photos), audio, video.

How much content is enough?

There's never enough. Your business changes all the time, so should your website. Your website visitors want up-to-date information, not the stuff you wrote for the company brochure that's supposed to have a shelf life of 3-5 years.

Is it true that website content must change? If so, how often?

Website Content must evolve just as your business evolves. If you're a retailer, you must periodically change your store window, keeping the merchandize fresh so customers have a reason to come back. The same is true online. If web success is about building online relationships, then you'll need to get visitors back to your site on a regular basis in order to build that relationship. Would you come back frequently if nothing ever changed?

As for how often you need to change it, that's more problematic. Our rule of thumb is to add or freshen content as your business requires or at least every six weeks, whichever comes first. Just like human visitors, search engine spiders return to your site, and if they don't find changes they'll move on to another site and you've missed your chance to rise in the rankings.

Why does my website need to tell a story?

People relate to stories. An advertising copywriter, for example, doesn't just list a product's features, he stresses its' benefits. Testimonials, as long in the tooth and corny as they often sound, work. They work because a testimonial is story about how one person used the product or service successfully. We identify, or we don't, with that person's story.

The difficulty with story telling on the web is that the story teller can't control the sequence in which the story is told. For instance, one visitor may see the home page first while another may come in on a News page or the About Us page. Without a fixed beginning, middle and end, story telling becomes more complex.

Just Imagine specializes in writing for the web. We know how to keep the story moving, how to engage the visitor and get that visitor to see other pages. The bottom line is encourage the visitor to make himself known by responding to you in some way. If that happens we were successful in telling your story.

What if I need at least some control over my own content?

We not only encourage this, we provide you with the means and the training to make the changes you want to make (real estate listings, product catalog, or whatever). Experience tells us, however, that most businesses, especially small business, are simply not staffed to manage a website as it needs to be managed.

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