When it comes to creating a web site or blog everyone is always talking about how important the content is. While this is the most important part of your web site when it comes to content, it’s not the final determination of how well your web site will fare with your audience.
More important than the quality of content you give to your audience is what you tell them to do with it.
During the latest redesign of BloggingTips.com I wanted to make sure I started to create a full navigation process for my new readers so they would know where to get the most important information on the site. This was done by recreating the navigation menu of my site.
The best way to drive traffic through your site and navigate them to the right spots is to actually tell them where they should go and what they should do.
Instead of just writing “HOME”, it’s also giving the description of “start here”… the same can be seen for other tabs in the menu. While these are simple commands, it does trigger the mind to think and draw interest more than just “ABOUT”… when you are also seeing “Meet the Team”. This makes people not only more interested, but able to better relate with your site.
This is an excellent tip for bloggers but can also be applied to ecommerce and regular web sites as well.
Another example can be seen at ingenie and their how it works page.
Ingenie isn’t your traditional car insurance site, as they offer a cool telematics device that helps their customers access driving trends and potentially keep their insurance at lower rates. This is probably a new feature to many of their customers, so they have a complete “how it works” page setup on their site to walk users through the basics and benefits of their service. As you can see in the screenshot below, they offer bullet points, contact information a video and more.
To finish off the list of different ways blogs and sites are using “How it Works” pages to increase conversions and user activity on their sites is Kiva, which is a very popular site for donating to different organizations online.
Since Kiva is recommended to people all over the world who are trying to raise awareness and donations to different organizations everywhere, they need to make sure their site is quick and easy to understand. Without using to much information, a quick steps process and a fun instructional video, it makes it easy for anyone to learn about the site and how to use their service. They’ve also listed the “How Kiva Works” page on the left side menu for anyone to find while browsing through the site.
It doesn’t matter how you create your “How it Works” page, just as long as you have one and are telling your how to direct users through your web site or blog.
You only have a few seconds to engage and grab the interest of people right when they get to your site, so telling them exactly what they need to know and where to click is one of the absolute best ways to engage that interest.
About Zac Johnson
Hey Zac,
Nice post and Thanks for sharing this post with us. Yes, design is the most important factor of successful blog and it makes the first impression in the new readers, so design should be like that he can easily find where are what type of stuff.
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This works well in our case, we run a web design company and make regular posts explaining to clients what exactly it is that we do and even how they can manage their own website.
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Very interesting. Showing a barrage of ads and out-of-context content only pisses off your viewers. To win their trust, you need to be honest. Get to the point. Tell them what they want to hear. Don’t waste screen space.
We should tell our audience about how the stuffs are working and how all of these things should be done. It can surely increase the conversion rate.
Nice article. In my view first one need to write useful content for the readers only. Slowly they start approaching the site with good interest.
I personally find “How it Works” page very useful. It gives us detail insight about the site which is very helpful for new site members. Plus, if written more precisely and accurately it will create a good contact and relationship with the audience out there. Nice and educational post. Thanks for sharing it!
Twitter: brokerhollywood
says:
Good article Zac. I like a number of things you pointed out. Things like using “Meet the Team” is so much more appealing than “About.” Thank you. I also think Ingenie dot com was also good example of a “how it works page” That really helped me get a good visual.
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That’s great idea as visitor point of view because some people don’t have idea how to go from here to there or sometime they visit the site but don’t get to visit the page where they want because of site complexity.the same thing was happened with me also.
Thanks.
i think adding human touch make more swift and comfy conversation which ultimately translates into your profit. but real problem with this, you should not go with over the top icing because it make your customer thinking that you are just luring them for their money and you will not able to sell or convert your site visitor in your would be customers.
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I appreciate the helpful information. Personally, I always leave a useful comment. I get plenty of useless, spammy comments on my own site that I have to get rid of.
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Twitter: jasonfox_me
says:
I like the how it works page… that is a simple yet clever idea.
I spend much of my time trying to imagine what my readers may be thinking, or how easy the site is to navigate.
It seems like all design is going to 1 Giant Image and a single call to action.
Jason
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I appreciate the helpful information. Personally, I always leave a useful comment. I get plenty of useless, spammy comments on my own site that I have to get rid of. http://www.coastalgreenscape.com/
Twitter: Rohitkabdwal
says:
very nice article Zac,
blogging is all about optimising your resouces and ideas into one platform to get the more profit,.. i think you’ve mentioned very good way to increase converson by telling your audiance hoe your website or blog works for you..,
i liked the idea. thinking on implementing the same..
thanks for this wonderful tip.. :)
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Twitter: SamuraiTradingA
says:
This is definitely something I can do better. With prior projects I often spend a lot of time on new content but not enough on just telling people How it Works! What I do is more of a process, but I think it would be very beneficial to clearly detail the steps people would need to take and set expectations.
It would probably save a lot of time answering emails too from people looking for more information. Now to get to thinking on the best way to structure it all…
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It’s important to notify our audience about the things, How it works and all. This will really helpful in increasing the conversion rate of our products.
Nice post thanks for sharing it.
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Twitter: rancorinfotech
says:
Certainly useful point Zac,
Unless you tell your visitors how your product or service going to help you or provide solution. You can’t expect your visitors to take your desired action. I think telling your USP is also quite crucial in generating any lead.
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Twitter: enstinemuki
says:
Thanks for sharing these tips Zac.
This will also increase Average time on site and Page views and directly affect SERP
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Quality of the content is very important. Good content means traffic . Great points . Well detailed
Helen Wright recently posted..Home
Yea you have to direct people with clear easy to use navigation and copy. People are not just going to know what to do and read first when visiting your website.
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you are quite innovative in thinking
as you stated earlier content is a key to get web traffic
thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much
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Twitter: FrugalConfess
says:
I like your thinking! I don’t currently have this on my site, but it would probably help. The more important first step, however, is figuring out what I want my readers to do and how they can best utilize my site to learn.
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Twitter: techblowup
says:
Telling our audience about how it works. We can in crease our conversions by applying this in our online business.
Thanks for this article. Nice article.
Prakash recently posted..Top 5 Free and Best Virtual Assistant for Android | Siri Alternatives
A very smart idea I think, especially for more dynamic sites with a lot going on. I think web goers have their own processes for looking over a site, and if things are set up in a way that is not intuitive for them, they can misunderstand the site or miss important context. Showing them how everything works is a cool idea of making sure your site is seen in the way you intent it to be. This is something I will definitely keep in mind for future projects. Very helpful, thanks!
Awesome post, In my opinion first we have write useful content for readers, After that they love come our site and it is very important to solve there doubts.
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Great article and your examples are pretty clever at telling visitors how the site works. Besides efficient layout and descriptions, I believe it also helps that you post a picture-laden stickied article that details how to use the site. Quite crude and not really subtle, but I think it’d also work.
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