How to Build a Direct Response Web Site
Page 3

• Graphics: Your graphics should support the copy and the sales goal.  These graphics can be pictures of products, diagrams of how the product works, or very well chosen marketing pictures that illustrate visually what the copy is already saying to the prospect.  Remember the sole purpose of the graphics is not to add aesthetic value to the page, but support the sales message.  If it doesn’t do that it is fluff and a distraction, cut it.
  
  
• Intuitive Navigation: Your site must have intuitive navigation, the buttons have to not only tell the prospect very clearly what they will find if they click that button, but also create a desire in them to click on it.  To do that your buttons have to strategically placed and have appropriate labels.  This is not the place to get cute and artistic.  Plain, simple, limited navigation that is easy to see and act on is what is required.  You may need to do some usability testing on this navigation with prospective users to determine if you have it right
  
  
• No Clutter: Don’t clutter your pages with all kinds of extraneous copy, useless graphics, ads for other sites, dancing Flash based ads or decorations, and other nonsense.  With all the neat things webmasters can do with Flash and JavaScript you might be tempted to let them create little effects on a page that “look cool” but at the end of the day only distract and confuse the user.  For a much more detailed discussion of this please read my position paper on how Flash can kill your web site.  It can be found at here

• Effective Copy:  For copy to be effective it must do more than simply list what you offer or details about your products.  These types of things are called features and contrary to popular belief features don’t cause people to buy.  The elements of effective copy include…
  

• Powerful Headline: Again the headline must literally reach out and grab your prospects attention.  It must have a powerful benefit statement that tells them by reading further they will discover a solution to one of their problems that keeps them awake at night.
  
  
• Benefits: Your copy must clearly show benefits to your prospect of doing business with you.  For example, a feature of a computer is a fast processor, but the benefit is the ability to do work faster or process data faster and do more stuff in less time.

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© Copyright 2007 by Michael Temple