Can They See Your Message?
Posted On: 2013-09-05
Ok so this is supposed to be spring? During winter we had beautiful sunny days ... lots of warm temps ... great days to be outside.
Today, as I write this, it's the fifth day of spring and it's cloudy ... there have been showers and I expect there will be more ... the wind is howling through the branches of the trees outside my office and the temperature is way down. It is definitely not a nice day to be outdoors. I guess it's just as well then that I've got a heap of work to get done in the office today.
Just a few moments ago I was having a coffee break and reading a mainstream newsletter that comes out each day. One of the articles that caught my attention was a review someone had written of the websites that belong to four of the biggest pharmacy chains here in Australia and something the reviewer said really does have some application to us.
The person who had looked at all four websites decided that there was far too much information on every one of the sites. According to the author every page was so stuffed with information ... so totally cluttered ... that it was hard to find the important information you might need if you wanted to make a purchase. Even if you knew what you were looking for on these websites you would still have trouble finding it amongst all the other stuff that was there.
At first I thought the author was exaggerating but when I went and had a look at a couple of the websites that she had reviewed I really did have to agree with her. If I had gone looking for something ... perfume for example ... I would have had trouble finding what I wanted because there were so many other items it was all but impossible not to be distracted.
Sure ... these websites wanted to sell me stuff ... lots and lots of stuff ... but they hadn't made it easy for me to find what it was that I wanted to buy. If you had asked me what message they were trying to send me via their website it would have been "buy something ... anything ... just throw your money at us" and of course that's just not going to happen.
So what's the message that you're sending to the people who visit your websites? Is it a clear unmistakable message that tells people to buy one single product or is it a message that offers them so many different purchase options that they end up leaving because they don't know what to buy?
Every page on your website should be able to stand alone as a sales page and should move your surfers in one direction only ... towards making a purchase. So do they do that or are they like those pharmacy chains that have so much stuff on each page that people don't know which way to go?
So how do you achieve that on an adult website? I would suggest that you do it in exactly the same way as you should do it on a product page for an e-commerce site.
Attract people with a headline that establishes a need ... a reason why people need to buy what you're selling. Provide a solution ... reasons why your product will meet their needs ... a few details on how it will meet those needs ... and finish it off with a call to action.
And all that should just flow naturally down each and every page with some eye-candy thrown in just to warm them up.
Of course there are going to be things that get in the way of that flow on some pages ... reciprocal links that your traffic sources demand are one of the things that will get in the way on your index page. However there are creative ways you can attempt to keep the attention of your surfers without breaking the rules set down by those traffic sources.
Even your galleries and gallery pages can be aimed at keeping the flow going from the headline to the call to action. All you have to do is understand that sometimes you have to do more than just ask for people to buy what you're selling.
You have to lead them, coax them and convince them that they really need what you're selling and their life won't be as satisfying without your product before you actually ask them to make a purchase.
Keep them focused on your main product ... make sure that they can see your message and won't be distracted by anything else.