Web Site Measurement Hacks

Use Language to Drive Action

The use of language on your web site is a critical usability element, one that has a tremendous amount of control over whether or not your visitors are satisfied.

Roy H. Williams once said:

You study pivotal people and the events of history, searching for a common denominator. You hope to identify the recurrent elements of greatness, the keys to phenomenal success. You search for the secret of miracles. After several hundred hours of reading, you reach an utterly inescapable conclusion: Words are the most powerful force there has ever been.

So if words pack enough muscle to change something insignificant like world history, they are certainly powerful enough to motivate a visitor through your web site.

You have goals for your business. You want customers to come to your site and complete the action you want them to take. You want them to buy, register, or become a lead. You want your visitors to engage with your web site, your marketing, and your brand, and proceed down the path of your sales process.

However, visitors come to a web site with their own goals in mind. They are engaged in their own process—their buying process, regardless of whether the ultimate goal is making a purchase. To be successful in your conversion efforts, you must interweave the “sales” process with the “buying” process: to help the company convert more visitors while assisting those visitors to accomplish their goals.

Know Your Visitors Motivations and Create Scent Trails

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