35% of visitors fail to achieve their goal when they visit Las Vegas websites! By following two simple rules, you really can increase your web revenue by a third or more!
Respected website usability researcher, Jakob Nielsen, published results of his latest study. His test subjects visited over 139 websites and on average they failed to find what they were looking for about 35% of the time. Shockingly, 37% of users couldn not even find company location details and contact information.
What was truly surprising was that users did not give up… they found the information they were after, but they found it at a competitor’s web site. 
So how exactly do you stop potential customers falling into the hands of your business competitors? Nielsen is right when he suggests user research. Yes, it is imperative that know what your users need and are looking for at your Las Vegas web site. But what he does not say is how to structure your website so it meets your users needs.
There are two main rules to follow:
- Write first and build later
- Write to your customer
The real message on most Las Vegas web sites is in the writing and the writing should determine the structure.
This is not the case for most local businesses, however. Most of the time, the writing is merely an afterthought and they design their website first, then try to fit the writing to the structure they have created. This makes no sense. You should not decide on a structure, then change the message to fit.
For a truly user-friendly website, you should plan what you want to say and communicate before you create the website and even write all the pages out before desigming or building.
So how do you decide what to write? Most customers will want to know the basics:
- What do you do exactly?
- What benefit do you offer them with your service or product?
- Why should they choose your service or product over a competitor?
- How much does your service or product cost?
- How can they contact you and where is your location?
Your Las Vegas website has to convey a lot of information and you must use your home page real estate wisely. Your website visitor should be able to find ALL relevant information on the home page (without scrolling) in a single window. So you’re probably thinking now ‘how am I going to fit it all in a single window?’ That’s where planning out your copy for the home page comes in, just do it carefully.
Your web site is an important marketing tool and is a very cost-effective way to communicate and find new customers. Remember, however, your competitors are doing the same thing. It’s important that your writing is clearly written and short and to the point, especially with your competitors’ web sites in mind.
8 More Reasons to Write Specifically for Your Audience
- There are over 550 billion documents on the web
- Every day another 8 million are added
- Visitors take so long trying to find information that it costs organisations $750 billion annually! (A.T. Kearney, Network Publishing study)
- Reading a web page from a monitor is 25% slower than reading from paper. (Sun Microsystems)
- Helpful content develops interaction and website loyalty.
- 79% of users scan read when online (Sun Microsystems)
- Information gathering is the most common use of the Internet – 73% (American Express survey)
- 48% of people use the Internet to find work-related information as opposed to 7% who use magazines. (Lyra Research)
