Copywriter needed to SLOW DOWN web traffic

Now, imagine you're driving a car along a busy road.
You're been driving for a while and so far you've enjoyed the ride. Nonetheless, you feel a little exhausted and a slight anxiety creeps over you that you may not be heading in quite the right direction.

Up ahead, you see a turning that looks inviting so you take it. Just a little way down the road you spot an opening into a shaded path. Pulling over to the side of the road, you step out to take a look.

Picking your way through the tall hedgerows, you soon find yourself in a garden like the one in the picture. The place looks welcoming and you take a seat by a table. Close by you can smell the aroma of coffee.

As you look around, someone greets you and offers you a cup. There' no charge for this and you accept. It's just what you need.

A few moments later, your host sits down with you and casually asks where you're heading.

The short narrative above provides a fair example of what you need to be aiming for when a new visitor arrives on your website.

Often I work with clients who are worried that their site isn't punchy enough and doesn't do enough to land a knockout blow the moment a prospective customer lands on it.

There are sites where this approach is exactly what you need. If you're selling products direct off the site, then you need people going there to take immediate action and we'll be looking at ways to optimise this in a later lens.

Today our focus is on the the mindset of someone searching for information ahead of a buying decision. They are most likely doing research and shortlisting websites they may want to revisit.

Think of it this way. If someone walks in off the street to find out if your business has what they're looking for, how long are they going to stay pacing around a cold, empty entrance hall with nothing but a haze of special offers and a potted history of your company to entertain them?

Maybe there's a phone, or a bell on a desk with a sign marked 'Ring For Service' and maybe a few people will use it, but how many?

Compare this to the reception area that has a friendly person, who guides you toward a comfortable seat and asks if you'd like a cup of coffee.

The main difficulty business and corporate websites have is overcoming that impersonal first impression that hits you the moment you arrive.

So, how do get past that? What do you put in place of the receptionist with the coffee?

The trick is to take an imaginative leap into your visitor's mind and SLOW DOWN their thoughts.

To clarify this, let's return for a moment to the driver and the garden.

If we take a look at what's going on behind the scenes, we find someone on the move, probably in a hurry, finding a reason to slow down and take a break.

Think about the way you use the net to gather information. Think of your mindset as you flit from one site to another. How fast you process the basic information. The struggle you have holding a clear impression of each site you visit.

It doesn't take long before they all seem to merge into a single hazy mass as information overload takes its toll. But you have to move on, you've a mission to accomplish.

Suddenly one jumps out, you're not sure quite why at first. Somewhere amidst all the wedges of information, the great offers and the action steps to take, there's a message that addresses YOU.

It slows you down. Gives you an excuse to rest for a while and read, listen to or watch.

You can imagine finding it in a book you enjoy reading, or on a programme you want to tune into, because it has that human touch that speaks directly to you about the reasons why you arrived there.

So you read it through, or hear it out and then you find yourself thinking; "That's refreshing, who are these guys?"

If this lens helps you write more effectve web copy, I'm delighted to help. That's the idea. But you know, it can be time consuming.

And, to be honest, not everyone is cut out for this kind of work. Having empathy with your reader and being as conversational as you can helps engage their attention, but that just gets you through the door.

Writing copy can be fun and very lucrative if you do it for others. Sometimes though, there are other priorities and you just want to find someone else to do it for you. If that's where you are, there's a resource I'll include at the end of this you may find useful.

In future lenses we'll take a look at what happens on the other side of the door, so if you found this helpful, stay tuned.

What's a guerrilla copywriting unit? To find out, go here; www.quickfixcopy.com