Genre: Instruction

Tentative Tom will want to read almost every page before making a purchasing decision. Decisive Dan, on the other hand, wants to skip to the important stuff, and now! How do you give both types of website users the information they need? Let's say you have a sales page of some kind on your website, and you want it to appeal to both Decisive Dan and Tentative Tom. This sales page could be for just about anything: Your service that you sell (be it building, copywriting, beauty therapy, and so on). Physical products , such as cosmetics, books, dog food, and so on. Online products , such as eBooks, online courses, audio, and so on. ... in short, just about anything! We all have a sales page of some kind on our website (well, you should do anyway). How would Tentative Tom read your sales page? Tentative Tom will read everything on your sales page, and at least once. In fact, he'll want all the information and then some more. For example: For a service , he'd like to read reviews and testimonials, to see what other clients think. For a product , he'd like reviews as well, but also an ingredients list. Making Decisive Dan read through all this stuff would drive him nuts! So how can you make your sales page appeal to both Decisive Dan and Tentative Tom? Here's how you can make a sales page appeal to both types of website users. This assumes that you want to give Decisive Dan a quick and easy route; in my last article I gave some examples as to why you might not want to do this. But in this instance, let's assume you want to give your website wide appeal. Here's how to do it. 1. Write a few paragraphs with the most pertinent information These initial paragraphs will give Decisive Dan all the information he needs: just a short, sharp, concise summary. Then give him a prominent call-to-action: which brings us to point number 2... 2. Provide multiple calls-to-action Decisive Dan will want a prominent call-to-action (such as a "Buy Now" button) that's easy to spot. This highly-visible button should show on your web page without him having to scroll to see it. (The technical term for this is "above the fold".) Here's an example from MailChimp email newsletter software: there's a big, prominent call-to-action button above the fold. Notice too how the button is in a bright, contrasting colour so that the call-to-action really stands out. That's another technique that Decisive Dan will love. It's easy to spot the brightly-coloured call-to-action - you don't even need to scroll down the MailChimp web page to see it. (Content that's visible without scrolling is called "above the fold".) But do you see what else they've done? Right underneath the button there's a hyperlink, "Need convincing?" Here's a close-up: Here's a close-up of that above the fold call-to-action. Notice the link underneath the "Sign Up Free" button? That's there for Tentative Tom! Tentative Tom will be very happy about this link, because it will take him to a long and detailed "Why MailChimp?" page: Tentative Tom will love this long and detailed sales page! Best of all, at the bottom of the page there's another prominent call-to-action. This is vital; you don't want website visitors reaching the bottom of the page and then wondering what to do next, and deciding if it's worth scrolling back up to the top. You need to give them a prominent call-to-action there and then. It's vital that there's a call-to-action at the foot of every web page. You should never leave your website visitors wondering where to go next! What's super cool about this MailChimp example is that there's another, more subtle, call-to-action underneath for the Tentative Tom who is still in research mode. They've made it easy for him to read the testimonials. Every single page on your website should have a call-to-action: Above the fold (if you want to attract the Decisive Dan type of person); and At the bottom of the page. Even Decisive Dan will be frustrated if he scrolls down and doesn't know where to go next! 3. Provide your contact details in case of questions Think that your job's done there? Nope, not quite yet. Chances are that Tentative Tom might still have some more questions lurking in his mind, so encourage him to contact you. Provide your email address, so that Tentative Tom can easily get in touch with any questions. Even if he doesn't get in touch with you, Tentative Tom will be reassured by the very fact that your email address is there. It makes your business look real, genuine, helpful. Decisive Dan will appreciate having your contact information on hand too. For his benefit, you should put your contact details on each web page (for example in the header or footer) so he doesn't have to go searching for it.